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canmom · 8 months

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entropy and life//entropy and death

This is a discussion that spun out of a post on web novel The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere. However, it's mostly a chance to lay out the entropy thing. So most of it is not Flower related at all...

the thermodynamics lesson

Entropy is one of those subjects that tends to be described quite vaguely. The rigorous definition, on the other hand, is packed full of jargon like 'macrostates', which I found pretty hard to wrap my head around as a university student back in the day. So let's begin this post with an attempt to lay it out a bit more intuitively.

In the early days of thermodynamics, as 19th-century scientists like Clausius attempted to get to grips with 'how do you build a better steam engine', entropy was a rather mysterious quantity that emerged from their networks of differential equations. It was defined in relation to measurable quantities temperature and heat. If you add heat to a system at a given temperature, its entropy goes up. In an idealised reversible process, like compressing a piston infinitely slowly, the entropy stays constant.

Strangely, this convenient quantity always seemed to go up or stay the same, never ever down. This was so strictly true that it was declared to be a 'law of thermodynamics'. Why the hell should that be true? Turns out they'd accidentally stumbled on one of the most fundamental principles of the universe.

So. What actually is it? When we talk about entropy, we are talking about a system that can be described in two related ways: a 'nitty-gritty details' one that's exhaustively precise, and a 'broad strokes' one that brushes over most of those details. (The jargon calls the first one a 'microstate' and the second one a 'macrostate'.)

For example, say the thing you're trying to describe is a gas. The 'nitty gritty details' description would describe the position and velocity of every single molecule zipping around in that gas. The 'broad strokes' description would sum it all up with a few quantities such as temperature, volume and pressure, which describe how much energy and momentum the molecules have on average, and the places they might be.

In general there are many different possible ways you could arrange the molecules and their kinetic energy match up with that broad-strokes description.

In statistical mechanics, entropy describes the relationship between the two. It measures the number of possible 'nitty gritty details' descriptions that match up with the 'broad strokes' description.

In short, entropy could be thought of as a measure of what is not known or indeed knowable. It is sort of like a measure of 'disorder', but it's a very specific sense of 'disorder'.

For another example, let's say that you are running along with two folders. Each folder contains 100 pages, and one of them is important to you. You know for sure it's in the left folder. But then you suffer a comical anime collision that leads to your papers going all over the floor! You pick them up and stuff them randomly back in the folders.

In the first state, the macrostate is 'the important page is in the left folder'. There are 100 positions it could be. After your accident, you don't know which folder has that page. The macrostate is 'It could be in either folder'. So there are now 200 positions it could be. This means your papers are now in a higher entropy state than they were before.

In general, if you start out a system in a given 'broad strokes' state, it will randomly explore all the different 'nitty gritty details' states available in its phase space (this is called the ergodic hypothesis). The more 'nitty gritty details' states that are associated with a given 'broad strokes' state, the more likely that it will end up in that state. In practice, once you have realistic numbers of particles involved, the probabilities involved are so extreme that we can say that the system will almost certainly end up in a 'broad strokes' state with equal or higher entropy. This is called the Second Law of Thermodynamics: it says entropy will always stay the same, or increase.

This is the modern, statistical view of entropy developed by Ludwig Boltzmann in the 1870s and really nailed down at the start of the 20th century, summed up by the famous formula S=k log W. This was such a big deal that they engraved it on his tombstone.

Since the Second Law of Thermodynamics is statistical in nature, it applies anywhere its assumptions hold, regardless of how the underlying physics works. This makes it astonishingly powerful. Before long, the idea of entropy in thermodynamics inspired other, related ideas. Claude Shannon used the word entropy for a measure of the maximum information conveyed in a message of a certain length.

the life of energy and entropy

So, everything is made of energy, and that energy is in a state with a certain amount of thermodynamic entropy. As we just discussed, every chemical process must globally increase the entropy. If the entropy of one thing goes down, the entropy of something else must increase by an equal or greater amount.

(A little caveat: traditional thermodynamics was mainly concerned with systems in equilibrium. Life is almost by definition not in thermodynamic equilibrium, which makes things generally a lot more complicated. Luckily I'm going to talk about things at such a high level of abstraction that it won't matter.)

There are generally speaking two ways to increase entropy. You can add more energy to the system, and you can take the existing energy and distribute it more evenly.

For example, a fridge in a warm room is in a low entropy state. Left to its own devices, energy from outside would make its way into the fridge, lowering the temperature of the outside slightly and increasing the temperature of the inside. This would increase the entropy: there are more ways for the energy to be distributed when the inside of the fridge is warmer.

To cool the fridge we want to move some energy back to the outside. But that would lower entropy, which is a no-no! To get around this, the heat pump on a fridge must always add a bit of extra energy to the outside of the fridge. In this way it's possible to link the cooling of the inside of the fridge to the increase in entropy outside, and the whole process becomes thermodynamically viable.

Likewise, for a coherent pattern such as life to exist, it must slot itself into the constant transition from low to high entropy in a way that can dump the excess entropy it adds somewhere else.

Fortunately, we live on a planet that is orbiting a bright star, and also radiating heat into space. The sun provides energy in a relatively low-entropy state: highly directional, in a certain limited range of frequencies. The electromagnetic radiation leaving our planet is in a higher entropy state. The earth as a whole is pretty near equilibrium (although it's presently warming, as you might have heard).

Using a multistep process and suitable enzymes, photosynthesis can convert a portion of the incoming sunlight energy into sugars, which are in a tasty low entropy state. This is a highly unfavoured process in general, and it requires some shenanigans to get away with it. But basically, the compensating increase in entropy is achieved by heating up the surroundings, which radiate away lower-temperature infrared radiation.

the reason we don't live forever

Nearly all other lifeforms depend on these helpfully packaged low-entropy molecules. We take in molecules from outside by breathing in and eating and drinking, put them through a bunch of chemical reactions (respiration and so forth), and emit molecules at a higher entropy (breathing out, pissing, shitting, etc.). Since we constantly have to throw away molecules to get rid of the excess entropy produced by the processes of living, we constantly have to eat more food. This is what I was alluding to in the Dungeon Meshi post from the other day.

That's the short-timescale battle against entropy. On longer timescales, we can more vaguely say that life depends on the ability to preserve a low-entropy, non-equilibrium state. On the simplest level, a human body is in a very low entropy state compared to a cloud of carbon dioxide and water, but we generally speaking do not spontaneously combust because there is a high enough energy barrier in the way. But in a more abstract one, our cells continue to function in specialised roles, the complex networks of reaction pathways continue to tick over, and the whole machine somehow keeps working.

However, the longer you try to maintain a pattern, the more low-probability problems start to become statistical inevitabilities.

For example, cells contain a whole mess of chemical reactions which can gradually accumulate errors, waste products etc. which can corrupt their functioning. To compensate for this, multicellular organisms are constantly rebuilding themselves. On the one hand, their cells divide to create new cells; on the other, stressed cells undergo apoptosis, i.e. die. However, sometimes cells become corrupt in a way that causes them to fail to die when instructed. Our body has an entire complicated apparatus designed to detect those cells and destroy them before they start replicating uncontrollably. Our various defensive mechanisms detect and destroy the vast majority of potentially cancerous cells... but over a long enough period, the odds are not in our favour. Every cell has a tiny potential to become cancerous.

At this point we're really not in the realm of rigorous thermodynamic entropy calculations. However, we can think of 'dead body' as generally speaking a higher-entropy set of states than 'living creature'. There are many more ways for the atoms that make us up to be arranged as a dead person, cloud of gas, etc. than an alive person. Worse still should we find we were in a metastable state, where only a small boost over the energy barrier is needed to cause a runaway reaction that drops us into a lower energy, higher entropy state.

In a sense, a viral infection could be thought of as a collapse of a metastable pattern. The replication machinery in our cells could produce human cells but it can equally produce viruses, and it turns out stamping out viruses is (in this loose sense) a higher entropy pattern; the main thing that stops us from turning into a pile of viruses is the absence of a virus to kick the process off.

So sooner or later, we inevitably(?) hit a level of disruption which causes a cascading failure in all these interlinked biological systems. The pattern collapses.

This is what we call 'death'.

an analogy

If you're familiar with cellular automata like Conway's Game of Life, you'll know it's possible to construct incredibly elaborate persistent patterns. You can even build the game of life in the game of life. But these systems can be quite brittle: if you scribble a little on the board, the coherent pattern will break and it will collapse back into a random mess of oscillators. 'Random mess of oscillators' is a high-entropy state for the Game of Life: there are many many different board states that correspond to it. 'Board that plays the Game of Life' is a low-entropy state: there are a scant few states that fit.

The ergodic hypothesis does not apply to the Game of Life. Without manual intervention, the 'game of life in game of life' board would keep simulating a giant version of the game of life indefinitely. However...

For physical computer systems, a vaguely similar process of accumulating problems can occur. For example, a program with a memory leak will gradually request more and more memory from the operating system, leaving more and more memory in an inaccessible state. Other programs may end up running slowly, starved of resources.

In general, there are a great many ways a computer can go wrong, and few that represent it going right.

One of the ways our body avoids collapsing like this is by dedicating resources to cells whose job is to monitor the other cells and intervene if they show heuristic signs of screwing up. This is the evolutionary arms race between immune system and virus. The same can be true on computers, which also support 'viruses' in the form of programs that are able to hijack a computer and replicate themselves onto other computers - and one of our solutions is similar, writing programs which detect and terminate programs which have the appearance of viruses.

When a computer is running slowly, the first thing to do is to reboot it. This will reload all the programs from the unchanging version on disc.

The animal body's version of a reboot is to dump all the accumulated decay onto a corpse and produce a whole new organism from a single pair of cells. This is one function of reproduction, a chance to wipe the slate clean. (One thing I remain curious about is how the body keeps the gamete cells in good shape.)

but what if we did live forever?

I am not particularly up to date on senescence research, but in general the theories do appear to go along broad lines of 'accumulating damage', with disagreement over what represents the most fundamental cause.

Here's how Su discusses the problem of living indefinitely in The Flower That Blooms Nowhere, chapter 2:

The trouble, however, is that the longer you try to preserve a system well into a length of time it is utterly not designed (well, evolved, in this case) for, the more strange and complicated problems appear. Take cancer, humanity’s oldest companion. For a young person with a body that's still running according to program, it's an easy problem to solve. Stick a scepter in their business, cast the Life-Slaying Arcana with the 'cancerous' addendum script – which identifies and eliminates around the 10,000 most common types of defective cell – and that's all it takes. No problem! A monkey could do it. But the body isn’t a thing unto itself, a inherently stable entity that just gets worn down or sometimes infected with nasty things. And cancer cells aren’t just malevolent little sprites that hop out of the netherworld. They’re one of innumerable quasi-autonomous components that are themselves important to the survival of the body, but just happen to be doing their job slightly wrong. So even the act of killing them causes disruption. Maybe not major disruption, but disruption all the same. Which will cause little stressors on other components, which in turn might cause them to become cancerous, maybe in a more 'interesting' way that’s a little harder to detect. And if you stop that... Or hell, forget even cancer. Cells mutate all the time just by nature, the anima script becoming warped slightly in the process of division. Most of the time, it's harmless; so long as you stay up to date with your telomere extensions, most dysfunctional cells don't present serious problems and can be easily killed off by your immune system. But live long enough, and by sheer mathematics, you'll get a mutation that isn't. And if you live a really long time, you'll get a lot of them, and unless you can detect them perfectly, they'll build up, with, again, interesting results. At a deep enough level, the problem wasn't biology. It was physics. Entropy.

A few quirks of the setting emerge here. Rather than DNA we have 'the anima script'. It remains to be seen if this is just another name for DNA or reflecting some fundamental alt-biology that runs on magic or some shit. Others reflect real biology: 'telomeres' are a region at the end of the DNA strands in chromosomes. They serve as a kind of ablative shield, protecting the end of the DNA during replication. The loss of the telomeres have been touted as a major factor in the aging process.

A few chapters later we encounter a man who does not think of himself as really being the same person as he was a hundred years ago. Which, mood - I don't think I'm really the same person I was ten years ago. Or five. Or hell, even one.

The problem with really long-term scifi life extension ends up being a kind of signal-vs-noise problem. Humans change, a lot, as our lives advance. Hell, life is a process of constant change. We accumulate experiences and memories, learn new things, build new connections, change our opinions. Mostly this is desirable. Even if you had a perfect down-to-the-nucleon recording of the state of a person at a given point in time, overwriting a person with that state many years later would amount to killing them and replacing them with their old self. So the problem becomes distinguishing the good, wanted changes ('character development', even if contrary to what you wanted in the past) from the bad unwanted changes (cancer or whatever).

But then it gets squirly. Memories are physical too. If you experienced a deeply traumatic event, and learned a set of unwanted behaviours and associations that will shit up your quality of life, maybe you'd want to erase that trauma and forget or rewrite that memory. But if you're gonna do that... do you start rewriting all your memories? Does space become limited at some point? Can you back up your memories? What do you choose to preserve, and what do you choose to delete?

Living forever means forgetting infinitely many things, and Ship-of-Theseusing yourself into infinitely many people... perhaps infinitely many times each. Instead of death being sudden and taking place at a particular moment in time, it's a gradual transition into something that becomes unrecognisable from the point of view of your present self. I don't think there's any coherent self-narrative that can hold up in the face of infinity.

That's still probably better than dying I guess! But it is perhaps unsettling, in the same way that it's unsettling to realise that whether or not Everett quantum mechanics is true, and if there is a finite amount information in the observable universe, an infinite universe must contain infinite exact copies of that observable universe, and infinite near variations, and basically you end up with many-worlds through the back door. Unless the universe is finite or something.

Anyway, living forever probably isn't on the cards for us. Honestly I think we'll be lucky if complex global societies make it through the next century. 'Making it' in the really long term is going to require an unprecedented megaproject of effort to effect a complete renewable transition and reorganise society to a steady state economy which, just like life, takes in only low-entropy energy and puts out high-entropy energy in the form of photons, with all the other materials - minerals etc. - circulating in a closed loop. That probably won't happen but idk, never say never.

Looking forward to how this book plays with all this stuff.

#fiction #sff #web serials #entropy #physics #biology #thermodynamics #the flower that bloomed nowhere #ok that's all i have to say about the first twelve chapters lmaooo

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modularelevatormanufacturing · 2 months

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Modular Quality Matters

6 Reasons Modular Quality Matters – We have all been frustrated by low quality. Items purchased in good faith sometimes seem to break before they come out of the box. Or once out of the box, they look or perform nothing like what was pictured or promised when we bought the item. Instead of being happy with the purchase, words like cheap and flimsy cross our lips, meaning that we have been had. The more expensive the item, the more remorse follows. However, in the modular industry quality is high because we take an antiquated process where onsite construction is the norm and move it to a production facility. What was then built by various people, in various trades, in various conditions becomes an orchestrated symphony of production. Historically poor quality and high cost is moved to a factory where exact processes and standards can be measured and accomplished. The modular process takes various acts of individual quality to a habit of success. For instance, our factory produced hoistways are always plumb and level. That is simply due to our factory processes that cannot be accomplished on the jobsite and it shows.

Constant inspection makes us better. "Quality is not an act, it is a habit." Aristotle As Aristotle said, "Quality is not an act, it is a habit." And those habits are formalized into higher quality with modular manufacturing. In modular building you will never hear “close enough” or "I guess we will have to make it fit." It is right every time, because the habits that produce quality are built in. Modular Quality Matters - More than a Slogan Unfortunately, there are outliers in some manufacturing facilities. Quality becomes just a slogan. If modular quality matters why do some not improve quality? Procedures are skipped, shoddy workmanship is allowed, new practices are slow to be adopted or worse continued tinkering and "problem solving" doesn't allow for systems to work. In other words, if you have a team of problem solvers constantly changing the system in an unorganized fashion, the quality will undoubtedly suffer. At Modular Elevator Manufacturing we make sure changes to procedures are checked and double checked before becoming standard operating procedures because modular quality matters. One person cannot just change something at a whim, even if it is generally a good idea. The procedure must likewise be changed with the whole team being aware of any alterations. That is where habits of quality are formed for the whole organization. We agree with the Phil Crosby philosophy of quality and as a literal rocket scientist he knew a thing or two about it. He said, “Quality is the result of a carefully constructed cultural environment. It has to be the fabric of the organization, not part of the fabric.” Quality is not posters, or slogans or bright ideas that get used once and then forgotten. For us quality is a top-down effort and philosophy emanating from senior leadership and permeating the organization at every level. Quality is crucial and should matter that much at every business. It does at Modular Elevator Manufacturing where we take quality seriously. The List of Why Modular Quality Matters With that said here are the 6 reasons quality matters for us at MEM. There are probably more but these came to mind: - Safety – People ride in our products everyday! We owe it to them to produce an extremely safe product. Quality makes sure of that. Also, we owe it to customers to have safe delivery and installation practices. Other don’t. - Morale – Nothing can crush the spirit of a team more than to know what they are producing stinks. Low quality creates low expectations throughout the organization. Turnover due to dissatisfaction and poor leadership is the result. It leads to a workforce with less experience and less training. Quality suffers. - Cost – Quality reduces costs. With elevators the savings are not necessarily in the product’s up front price tag, but still there. When the unit is delivered and handed over, any poor quality becomes the burden of the building owner. Those costs are often hidden from the customer until it is too late. A cheap elevator turns out is a cheap elevator. - Longevity – This is real important in the elevator industry. In the hundreds of projects we have been a part of, all are still in service (unless the building was decommissioned). Our quality produces longevity and that says a lot with 40 years experience. - Retention – Low quality makes it difficult for some to retain customers and good relationships. The low quality modular elevator company has to always find new victims for their poorly constructed product. We have an extremely high customer retention rate due to the care we use when producing an elevator. - Reputation – This really hurts the most. Poor quality from other manufacturers gives the whole of the modular industry a blackeye. Quality You Can Trust The entire premise of modular construction is that by instilling factory processes into the construction trade, the industry can produce a higher level of quality, faster and often at a reduced cost. That is what we do at MEM day in and day out. However, when slipshod practices and lack of experience infiltrate the market, quality declines. Then the premise of factory production being better comes under attack. Whether due to ignorance, no experience or a desire to make a fast buck, when quality is ignored the reputation of the industry gets sullied. The result is a better process that produces a better product (safer, greener and faster) becomes more difficult for the consumer to accept. Who knows how many dollars, how much time and how much energy has been wasted. How many injuries could have been avoided? All due to a very small number of businesses that do not see quality as important. That is why at MEM we do not think “close enough” is good enough. We know that low-quality has a cost to the industry, the customer and to safety. We strive for quality in all we do. Whether you need a multi-family unit elevator or one for a medical facility, an elevator for a retrofit project or new construction we provide a quality solution. Try Us If you have tried modular elevators before and found that the quality was not as promised, don’t give up. Instead give MEM a try. We live by the above list of 6 reasons modular quality matters. You will not be sold a bill of goods for a fast buck, but instead you will find a partner providing quality you can count on. If you have a project in mind just click the button below, we can get you budget numbers in less than a day. Of course you can also call us anytime, and have a real conversation with an expert in the elevator industry. We are looking forward to talking to you. You can also click the link for a tour of our facility. Also, we are proud of what we do and how we do it. So, if you are curious schedule your live virtual tour today. Request a FAST TRACK QUOTE Request a LIVE VIRTUAL TOUR Read the full article

#Elevator #ElevatorManufacturer #ElevatorQuality #MEM #modularelevator #ModularElevatorManufacturing #ModularQuality #Qualitymatters

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iridescentxstars · 3 years

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experiment z — kim jongin

➳ published: 02.11.21 ➳ zombie apocalypse!au || genre: angst || thriller || rated: m ➳ pairing: kim jongin x fem!reader ➳ summary: losing people in this day and age is normal, people die every day here but how do you deal with it when the dead don't stay dead? ➳ word count: 7.6k ➳ warnings: blood, human experimentation, violence, mentions and use of weapons, character death, hint at government corruption ➳ author's note: this is so late, i am so sorry but this was the hardest thing i have probably ever written! let's just say this isn't my forte. happy halloween though! this is a part of the undead collab created by the lovely @biaswreckingfics, please go support the writers here! please support me on patreon or give feeback if you liked it, thank you!

Year 3020, the year the plague caused the world to come to a halt. Nobody knew where it came from, the illness that caused such horrible symptoms, there were rumours and the governments never gave insight into the origins. People died, the death toll rising higher and higher until action was taken and people stayed home, keeping away from anyone who looked sick until it became them staying away from anyone in general.

Cities fell, economies crashed, there was no end in sight and after five years, there is no cure that has helped save the failing population. They always said the Earth would reclaim itself, once concrete jungles fallen and destroyed with new life slowly overtaking the once bustling metropolises, animals roamed freely while the small population of 10,000 were caged within walls built to keep them alive.

But it wasn’t the animals that they were trying to stay safe from.

They call it the ‘Zetavirus’, the deadliest virus to sweep across the globe in over a thousand years. The symptoms were uncontrollable hunger which caused people to become cannibalistic, lesions and weeping sore to cover the body and irrational anger. Scientists realised it attacked the brain, practically turning people into zombies but as it mutated, so did the symptoms. Death would have been kind, the excruciating pain that people suffered while their brain slowly rotted away should have been enough but those that died – never stayed dead.

This was nothing like those movies where as societies fall, new ones are built on the ruins, or where everyone is spread out and scavenging for survival. No, this wasn’t like the movies but it definitely felt like an extinction. As long as they stayed within the walls, stayed safe inside the large walls of the city then everyone lived peacefully.

Humanity lived like this for years, slowly growing and expanding, the years slowly passing and everything seemed to get better. There hadn’t been an infection in three years, slowly leading to four, they were the hunters again instead of being the hunted, and civilisation became something that was built on unity and prosperity – until people started going missing.

You were seven when the first incident happened, that one of the hunters had not returned but the unit had no idea what had happened because there were no undead around or animals that were stealthy enough to snatch someone without them knowing – he had just disappeared without a trace.

That’s when the rumours began.

There was an abandoned building outside of the border, a good distance away from the walls but close enough for travel to be quick, the government had turned it into a research facility for a vaccination because while the world was still working against mankind, they knew that the population was slowly growing. To accommodate for that growth, to prevent the risk of the virus spreading again, they needed to begin to carry on with their studies and start to figure out how to save humanity.

Everyone was told that it was safe. That they would save the world, but nobody could ever imagine what actually went on in that building.

“Jongin, wake up,” the alarms blare, the warning signs that there has been a breach at the wall. “Get up!” You pull at his arm, causing your dead-to-the-world boyfriend to fall out of bed and scrambled to his feet.

“What?” His brain takes a while to process the announcement being said over the PA. “Shit!” His eyes widen and he rushes to the cupboard with his shirt hurriedly being pulled over his head.

Over the last twenty years, things have changed and the world has changed with it. More people have gone missing over the years, only to be found wandering around and slowly losing their minds. The zombies have now been categorised into different ‘species’ because some of them are gruesome and beyond recognition, their bodies slowly rotting away like decaying corpses while others look almost human, barely indistinguishable from anyone else until they try and take a bite out of whoever is close to them.

Then, there are the Alphas. They have been given this name because they stand out the most from their dumb counterparts; intelligent and perfectly able to fit in with society if it wasn’t for the detection system that has been installed at the wall.

Nobody can figure out where these new species were coming from, like the zombies were slowly adapting to their changing food source, trying to stay on top and the government hasn’t been making the best progress with their research – or so they say.

Jongin and you are a part of the Zombie Infestation Team – ZIT, for short. Yes, it is an amusing name but there is nothing amusing about watching a zombie tear your sister limb from limb as you try to save her or watching them drag her screaming body into the forest that surrounds the walls. Jongin had joined for his own reasons, reasons nobody talks about because the nightmares still haunt him to this day – he still wakes up in a sweat and you had to convince him not to sleep with a pistol under his pillow, scared he might accidentally shoot you. Your job is to handle any zombies that enter the city, cover hunters when they head out of the walls as well as take any captured zombies to the Research Centre for testing.

You hate that place, truly hate it but it’s your job and you are good at it.

The sound of footsteps running down the hall causes you to shoot a look over at Jongin, the male finishing getting ready as someone bangs on the door and shouts out something that is muffled by the metal. “We need to go.” You grab your weapon and place it in its holster while Jongin slings his over the shoulder and follows behind you.

Two years you’ve been together, five working together, and it still takes your breath away at how he looks when focused. Jaw tense, brows furrowed but he looks determined and ready wearing his tactical gear with his hair brushed off his forehead. It amazes you how cruel this life can be, when someone who would have been working as a model, maybe a movie star, in another life, is walking down a hallway with the rest of his unit, ready to risk his life.

It also amazes you at how his usual sweet and loving self is all yours.

The zombie struggles, causing your feet to slip and slide on the wet ground; you and two of your unit had caught the zombie while the rest of them checked the area to make sure that nobody had been bitten or scratched, and that no more zombies had made it through. You know who it is, who you have the leash around as it struggles and pulls, causing you to send an electric shock through the metallic lead; Joy was your best friend, she had gone missing a week ago when on a perimeter check, so to see her in such a state – a monster – you feel sick to your stomach as you see where her shirt is ripped, bone showing from the deep bite taken out of her arm.

“Orders are to keep the specimen alive. Bag ‘em and tag ‘em.” Your team leader, Junmyeon, shouts as the rest of the unit arrive from securing the area and checking on the traumatised civilians.

Jongin lifts his weapon, firing two tranquilisers into the zombie’s back and you hold fast, waiting until the paralytic concoction takes effect and your former friend falls to the ground, groaning as its tongue clicks. “What is that?” You ask, removing your leash as the clicking slowly quietens, the zombie now completely paralyzed. “Suho, what was that clicking noise?” You look over at your team leader and he shrugs, indicating that he’s never seen it before either.

“I’ll ask when we get the Z to the Centre.” Jongin and Chanyeol lift the zombie up, transferring it to the cage in the pack of the truck as you all pack up to head out. “Y/N,” you turn when your voice is called, looking at Junmyeon with a confused look on your face. “Go home.”

You scoff, shaking your head. “No way.”

“She was your friend; we all know how close you two were.” His voice is soft, the command still in his tone. “It’s okay, we can handle it from here.”

You look over at Jongin and he gives you a small smile, indicating that he was the one who had mentioned something to Junmyeon. “Suho, with all due respect, I knew the moment that Joy was reported missing that she was never coming home unless she looked like-”

He cuts you off by placing his hand on your shoulder, “go home, that’s an order.” You sigh, nodding once as you head over to Jongin. You hate it, hate being benched simply because someone you knew ended up zombie chow; everyone has lost someone, this is a part of the life you live, but Joy wasn’t just your best friend but the closest thing you had to a sister after you lost your own years ago.

“Be safe,” you grumble at him and Jongin pouts, breaking his strong façade for a moment as he looks at you.

Placing a finger under your chin, he tries to catch your eyes. “I’ll be home soon, okay?” You nod, still avoiding his gaze and he pulls you in for a brief hug.

You watch the truck drive off, Jongin sitting on the back with the cage, he lifts a hand to wave goodbye and you lift your half-heartedly before turning and heading back to the dormitory that your unit call home.

Jongin watches your retreating back until you’re no longer in sight, sighing as he runs a hand through his hair and Junmyeon looks at him. “It’s better for her to stay home and rest than something happening because of delayed shock.” He nods, knowing that while you say that you are perfectly fine with the fact that your best friend as a zombie, there’s a difference between saying it when she’s tranquilised and dropping her off at the facility. “It is strange though,” Jongin’s head lifts up to look at the leader, a pensive look on the older male’s face. “How did a Z get so deep into the city?” Jongin has been thinking that as well, normally they stay near the wall, lunging and going after those around them but not this time.

It’s almost like she was looking for something, going somewhere…

“Maybe the scientists will have a better idea at what’s happening because like Y/N said, Joy was making a strange clicking noise and they weren’t doing that before.” Both males look at the zombie incapacitated in the cage, “there has been rumours that they have been evolving…”

Junmyeon shakes his head, “if they were, we would have been told about it. We are the line of defence for the city, they wouldn’t learn such a thing and not tell us. We can’t defend the people if we are kept in the dark.” Jongin slowly nods, agreeing because it’s true but that doesn’t take away the strange feeling in his stomach.

Too many things have been happening lately, there have been several boogies entering the city over the last month when previous cases were maybe once or twice a month. There have been sightings of Alphas out in the open when they would very rarely spot them anywhere near the city. Now that Jongin thinks about it, there has been some difficulty getting in touch with the Research Centre, but as he goes to bring up his worries, the truck slows down.

“How’s the cargo?” Baekhyun calls from the window of the driver’s side.

“Still out,” Jongin calls back and the other man pops his head back in the window, pressing the button on the radio to indicate they have arrived and the gate slowly creaks open. “Isn’t it… quiet?” He asks, keeping his voice down as if speaking normally would disturb the eerily quiet atmosphere that has fallen upon the usually buzzing centre.

Junmyeon must have noticed this too as his lips pull into a hard line and he takes the safety off his weapon. “Eyes sharp until we get out of here. Maybe there’s nothing to worry about but I don’t like looks of that.” He motions with his head at the abandoned forklift on the other side of the large concrete yard, the forks up and still carrying a heavy crate but nobody is around it or the open warehouse door. “Usually, the place is teeming with workers so either everyone happens to be on break or-”

“Or, something’s wrong.” Jongin finishes the sentence as he knocks on the window at Sehun, the youngest also noticing something is wrong by the fact that his weapon is out of its holster.

You lay on the bed, looking up at the ceiling and watch the fan spin around and around as memories with Joy run through your mind. You remember the day you met, how your friendship began over something as simple as watching the girl shove mochi into her mouth to see how much she could fit and still chew. You remember all the tears you shared, comforting each other through every loss, break up and also every celebration. Every memory in the last ten years, she was there and now…

The tears begin to flow as you lay there, reaching for Jongin’s pillow and pulling it close to you. Now she’s gone, now she’s at the Research Centre as an experiment for the government who have made very little progress on the vaccine to save the world. Now you are alone again, well, not completely because you still have Jongin and the team but Joy was someone you could confide in about things you couldn’t with them, with him. The tears flow until your tear ducts dry up, until your body is shaking with broken sobs and your chest is painful from the broken, beating heart that beats within your heaving chest.

It doesn’t take you long until you cry yourself to sleep, curled up and hugging Jongin’s pillow. His lingering scent barely helps to keep you calm but it’s a thousand times better than how you would manage without it. A restless sleep awaits you, dreams plaguing your mind and tormenting you with your worst nightmares and reminders of the time you live in – a time where one small incident can result in such a tragic loss. You toss and turn in your sleep, whimpering out names of those you have lost as they pass through your dream like smoke that always slips between your fingers and you can’t hold onto it.

“No,” you whimper, eye furrowing as you try to grab Jongin’s hand but your fingers slip at the last minute, “no!” You wake up in a cold sweat, slowly becoming aware of the blaring alarm sounding through the room as the nightmare fades from your mind. As the haze disappears, your trained habit to leap out of bed and get dressed to report for duty kicks in. Efficient, fast and without hesitation, that’s what you were trained to be – no matter what may happen to those you love, you still have a duty to the city and its citizens.

“What’s the matter?” You ask, rushing into the command centre to find the Beta team gearing up, “is there a breach?”

Yixing shakes his head as his fingers move like lightning across the keyboard, the computer trying to clear up the audio that is crackling on screen. “We can’t get in touch with the Research Centre for a while now, their systems kept us out and we weren’t able to get in until now.” As the audio plays again, you make out Junmyeon’s voice, the audio still staticky but you can faintly make out words.

“…Centre…dead…Alphas have taken…activate…lies…”

Everyone in the room pauses as the computer retries to take away the intense static. Yixing looks at you, Minseok and Jongdae placing their guns in their holster and before he can even say a word, you are heading over to your locker to grab your tactical gear. “That’s my team in there.” You say to his unspoken words, “you know I can’t leave them like that if I can help.”

“Y/N, we don’t know what he’s saying, we don’t know what is going on. I cannot access the video feed yet so I think it’s best if you wait-”

“No,” you place your gun in its holster and turn to face him, “I’ll take one of the command radios, you can contact me through there but you aren’t stopping me from going and helping my team.” Looking over at the other two, you nod and they start to move, following you as you find the rest of the Beta team preparing the vehicle – on order from Minseok.

They had known it was a trap when they had entered the large, empty, white room; they had known because it was too quiet but what were they meant to do? When the first zombie ran at them, several more rushed from all angles, they didn’t know where they were coming from – it seemed to be never ending until the click of an empty magazine gives the surviving zombies the upper hand. Coming in faster than they can reload, Jongin dives out of the way from the undead lunging at him, barely getting away while it latches onto Sehun but he doesn’t have time to think about rescuing his friend when two grab him, several more grabbing his team mates but the searing pain from a zombie bite never comes.

The collective sound of clicking rings around the spacious room and fear runs down his spine, chilling him to the bone when realisation hits him – they really have evolved. They had always suspected it, the same way that predators adapt and evolve with their food source, they always wondered if the zombies were evolving too but nobody had really confirmed it. It should have been noted, if the Research Centre was doing what they had been telling everyone for years that they were doing – wouldn’t they have picked it up? That question remains unanswered and unimportant as they struggle to fight back against the strong hold of their captors, being separated once they enter the never-ending what hallway that leads deeper into the facility.

“Guys!” Jongin shouts, looking over his shoulder to see Sehun being dragged into a room across the hall from him, “if you get fr-” The sentence is abruptly cut off by the door sliding shut, locking itself which indicates that someone must be behind the controls. The zombies aren’t smart enough, surely, they aren’t smart enough to be able to work the control panel… unless… Jongin begins to struggle some more, grunting as he tries to plant his feet and pull his arms free but his captors hold tight, his shoulders almost popping out of their sockets as they give him a harsh yank and causes him to lose his footing. He would have ended up with his face hitting the hard floor if it wasn’t for them.

Lucky him – or not when the zombies decide to knock Jongin out with a swift, hard knock to the back of the head.

Junmyeon watches everything in horror after managing to find their way into the security room. They had decided to split up once entering the facility, Junmyeon, Baekhyun and Kyungsoo searching for the control room while Jongin, Sehun and Chanyeol went looking for survivors. They had heard cries earlier, calls for help that had come from the direction that the other group went in and while they all knew to remain suspicious – nobody could have ever suspected that the zombies were smart enough to do such things and lure them into a trap like that. They found the two security guards dead and took extra measure to make sure before trying to unlock or access whatever they could in the system but it all proved to be more difficult than expected when they couldn’t access anything apart from the cameras.

That’s when they saw it. That’s when Junmyeon watched half his team get dragged away for God-knows-what reason.

“What are they doing?” Baekhyun asks while Kyungsoo tries and hotwires some of the system for them to be able to send a message out. The computer reboots, a soft pleased grunt coming from underneath the desk as Junmyeon looks away from the camera screen and to the monitor instead. “They are tying them to operating tables… do you think-”

Junmyeon shakes his head, “if they were going to eat them, they would have done so right then and there rather than capturing them.” He begins to hack into the system, jaw clenching in thought while Baekhyun gives a running commentary on what is happening.

They don’t know what’s going on. Looking at the cameras that are still functioning, there is absolutely no clue as to what these zombies have planned or even how they have managed to become so sophisticated. Have they been this way the entire time and this has caused the growing population to become laxed in how they approach zombies? Have they been playing the long game this entire time? Junmyeon shakes his head, clearing such thoughts from his mind because if he thinks about them then he will begin to doubt everything the government has told him.

They wouldn’t lie to the people, right?

They wouldn’t keep such information from them in order to keep them in the dark and unsuspecting to the dark truth?

No, no, he couldn’t believe it, he mustn’t but as he breaks through the security on the computer, everything… everything he knew ends up having a giant question mark over top of it all. “Research entry #2054,” a deep voice begins to play as he clicks on the most recent video file that was uploaded two weeks ago. “The experiment was a success; we have managed to reverse the virus with only one unfortunate side effect.” Everyone in the room freezes and looks at the monitor, the video shows a zombie strapped down to a vertical gurney, gnashing its teeth at the scientist that moves near it. “We have figured out that only a fresh zombie, about a week at the most, is able to be brought back to the land of the living – as long as there is no life-threatening damage to their body.” A syringe is placed into the IV that is connected into the zombie’s arm and the scientist steps back, the video beginning to move faster to show the process. “It has been rather difficult to make sure that the subjects meet the conditions needed for the cure but with the blood of the Alpha in our possession, we have been able to safely create zombies and now cure them as well.” The physical changes in the zombie begin to show as it stops fighting and slowly starts look frightened and unaware of their surroundings. “However, it is not yet something we can use due to a low success rate,” once the person starts to come back to their senses, the camera speed slows down and zooms in but moments after they start looking around at where they are – blood begins to drip from their nose. “Out of ten tests so far, only three have survived. This poor fellow lasted a full twenty seconds before his brain started to melt and he died a painful and agonising death.” They watch in horror as the camera records the man’s final moments, his screams inaudible due to the voice file being placed over top but the pain is clear as day.

As the video ends, they all look at each other, horror clear on their face as their eyes shift from each other to the camera screens. “Wh- Suho, what are they doing to Kai?” Baekhyun asks, moving towards the screen that shows them what is happening in the room where Jongin is being held. The image is grainy, the camera more than likely damaged from whatever has been going on but they can clearly make out someone walking in from off-screen and a passed out Jongin having his neck turned to the side.

“D.O, do you think you can get a signal out to the command centre?” Junmyeon asks, looking at the man who is watching his helpless friend.

It takes him a moment to respond but Kyungsoo nods, slowly before dragging his eyes off the screen and looking over at the radio. If the reason for the take-over isn’t clear, one thing is – they definitely didn’t want anyone to be able to contact for help. “You’ll need to know exactly what you want to say because from the looks of this, you’ll be lucky to get out ten seconds worth of audio before it dies on us.”

Junmyeon nods in affirmation, preparing a short but efficient message in his head before Kyungsoo gets to work and Baekhyun keeps an eye on the screen. The figure is dressed in a white lab coat, wearing surgical gloves and their face is covered with a mask which gives no indicator to the man watching who they are. He watches while the sounds of Kyungsoo tinkering with the radio are the loudest in the room; a syringe is clearly stuck into the greyscale version of Jongin, the camera fritzing a little before showing the hand pulling away and head lifting to look at the zombies who are seemingly standing guard. “Ah… guys… we have a problem.” It is a problem indeed, a massive one. The figure turns around, walking to the edge of the screen but stops in direct view of the camera and looks up, showing his face.

“What’s the matter, Baek?” Junmyeon asks as he adjusts the knobs of the radio to make sure when power surges through that they are already connected to the command centre’s station.

“You know how we just saw the crazy mad scientist turning a zombie into a human?”

“Yeah?”

The zombie in question wags his finger as if telling them off for watching him work. “Well, I think he’s batting for the other team now.” The zombie covers his face again and heads out of sight, showing up in Sehun’s room moments later. “And he knows we’re here.”

Right on cue, the radio lights up and Junmyeon says his well-rehearsed message. “Zombies have overtaken the Research Centre. Everyone is dead. Alphas have taken Kai, Hun and Yeol. Activate Protocol Eradication. What we know are lies.” The light turns off and he places down the speaker with a heavy sigh. “Let’s hope that they managed to get it.”

Baekhyun looks as the zombie scientist walks out of Sehun’s room and shortly enters Chanyeol’s. “What are we going to do?”

“We find the cure.” Both of them look at Junmyeon, clearly thinking the same thing. That’s not something he really wants to do either but what other choice do they have? “We don’t leave our men behind, besides, if there is a cure – they must have created a vaccine.” He sounds too hopeful for a man who has no idea how the fuck they are going to survive this – if they survive this.

The moment the gates close behind you, you know something is amiss, that there should be alarms blaring or even zombies roaming around but there is nothing. No one. The only indication that your team is here is their truck and your leg begins to bounce nervously as you wonder where they are and if they are still alive. “Beta to Command, do you copy?” Jongdae speaks into the radio, hearing nothing but static from the other end, “Beta to Command, we’ve entered the Research Centre, do you copy?” Again, nothing. “Shit, I think they’ve jammed the signal.”

“It would explain why Suho’s message came through the way that it did. It’s lucky that we managed to get what we could from it.” Minseok says as he parks their truck next to the other one. “Everyone, we are on an extraction mission – kill any hostiles on sight and get our boys out of here.” The men surrounding you answer obediently, piling out of the truck and taking their positions. Two men go and find high ground while the other one stays close by to you, Minseok and Jongdae. “Y/N, there is a chance that-”

“Don’t,” you cut him off, already knowing what he is going to say and you are well aware. You have spent the entire drive here preparing yourself for the possibility that they are all gone but you know your team – they are the best of the best – they would have survived anything… or died fighting.

The lights are out as you move through the large, empty warehouse, the flashlights attached to your weapons providing minimal light in front of you. Everything is quiet, eerily quiet as each footstep is carefully placed before the other like a thief in the night to try and keep you from making too much noise and alert any unwelcomed fiend to your presence. Pressing your back against a large shipping container, you stealthily look around the corner and notice a light flickering in the distance – a destination.

No one makes a sound as you make your way towards the hallway.

Everything is as quiet as a mouse.

You can’t risk losing the upper hand.

Suddenly, everyone is on high alert as running footsteps sound from the direction of the hallway, quickly followed by someone trying to turn the corner too fast and stumbling over, scrambling to his feet. “Lower your weapons.” You say loud enough for them to hear you because you would know that barely illuminated figure anywhere. “Jongin?” You call out to him, his head snapping in your direction as he begins to run towards you, waving for you to move. “J-Jongin?”

“Run, quick,” he calls out, slowing down only to grab your wrist and pulling you back the way you came. “What are you doing? Go!” Before they can question him, Sehun comes running out after him, the low groaning and heavy footsteps a tell-tale sign that your team mate has fallen in the worst of ways.

Shots echo around, the sound bouncing off the walls and causing Jongin to stop and pull you into his chest. While the sound itself didn’t bother you at all, this has been your job for long enough to handle to loud noise – it’s the fact of who those shots were fired at that caused you to hide your face into Jongin’s chest as he hugged you tight. First Joy and now Sehun, how many other people are you going to lose?

When will it stop?

“Are you okay?” Jongin’s hands gently cradle your face, lifting you to look up at him in the dim lighting before his forehead rests against the hardness of your helmet, the gesture still warming your aching heart. “What are you doing here?” He asks, looking over your shoulder to the team making their way towards you, Jongdae walking backwards to make sure there are no more surprises coming out of the dark.

You place your hands over his, noticing a warm dampness to his left hand and being careful not to cause him any pain. “There was an alert sent through, a distress call from Suho which was terrible and hard to make out so we executed a rescue mission to bring the team and any survivors home.”

You can barely make out his face but from the expression you see, you can tell he isn’t impressed. “Are you stupid?” He snaps, causing you to recoil a little before he apologises and pulls you back in for a hug. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the gesture but… there are no survivors. I barely managed to escape Hun, I have no idea where the others are and Yeol…” Jongin sighs, hanging his head, “we were ambushed while we were searching for survivors and we didn’t realise Hun had been bit until it was too late. He caught me by surprise, throwing me against the wall and dazing me before lunging at Chanyeol.”

You pull him close, letting his head rest against your shoulder as you comfort him, “I’m sorry.” That is all you are able to say before Minseok taps your shoulder and indicates that it’s best to move outside into the light instead of standing still like sitting ducks. You knew this, you really should have thought about that but something about having Jongin safe in your arms made the soldier in you disappear while the worried girlfriend took over and caused you to have a lapse in judgement. “We’ll find the others,” you promise, knowing that it may be an empty one.

Jongin hums, taking your hand and giving it a squeeze as you walk towards the large bay door. “How are you holding up? I thought you would have stayed in after this morning.” There’s your Jongin, the man who always puts you above himself.

You’re about to answer him when Minseok says something that causes a shiver to run down your spine. “Don’t you think for a facility that was overrun by zombies that we are lacking in zombies?” It’s true, it’s something that you’ve noticed since you arrived, besides Jongin and Sehun, there have been no other signs that anyone is around and if there are zombies lurking somewhere – they would have come out during the commotion. Everyone remains on high alert, Jongin sticking close to you while Jongdae and the other soldier following behind you. You can’t let your guard down even if it seems like there is no sign of danger – if there’s no sign of danger in a place that should be riddled with zombies then that is, in itself, a clear indicator that something is amiss. “Kai?” Minseok asks as you reach the truck, the snipers providing a sense of safety you didn’t have before. “Where did you say you were ambushed?”

You go and grab the first aid kit while Jongin sits down inside the truck, “deeper inside the facility.” He indicates with his chin back towards the warehouse you had left, “there were some chambers where it looked like they experimented on the zombies. There was one feeding which we managed to take out but the shot attracted more to our location and soon we knew it, we were cornered.” He winces as you clean the cut on his cheek, a deep bruise showing under the dried blood.

“How did you manage to escape if Sehun was bit?” The tone of Minseok’s question causes Jongin to tense up and you turn your head to snap at him.

“What’s up with the interrogation, Xiumin? He’s here, isn’t he? He hasn’t been bitten or scratched so why the fuck are you grilling him?” Jongin gently grabs your wrist to pull your attention to him and when you look at him, seeing the softest smile on his beautiful pink lips, you calm down almost instantly but there’s still a lingering sting of annoyance at the man’s line of questioning.

Wincing slightly when you press anti-septic against the cut on his forehead, Jongin answers, “there was an alert of some kind, almost like someone was paging them and within seconds, they had stopped and left. I’m sure they know how to communicate with each other because they left us alone and hurried away, leaving us confused and injured. We checked some of the rooms to see if we could find anything else but as we decided to look for the others – Sehun changed and grabbed Chanyeol before rushing me.”

Minseok is about to say something when his name being called pulls his attention away. You glare at the retreating man, who walks around the back of the truck and greets an exhausted looking Junmyeon, before Jongin stops your fussing over his wounds and holds you close. You are shocked at first, it’s not often that Jongin will be affectionate in the field but after the day you both have had then it seems like he needs this almost as much as you do. “I was so scared I was going to lose you,” you whisper, his hug getting tighter as he lets out a soft laugh.

“You did.”

“Did you not get my message?” Junmyeon asks his friend as they share a quick embrace, patting each other on the back before separating.

Shaking his head, Minseok sighs, “whatever you were trying to say, the audio was so bad that the computer barely managed to make out a few words.” He points at the small kit that’s attached to his belt.

“Oh,” Junmyeon sounds as he looks down and unclips the kit, opening it to show. “We found where they were storing the vaccine and cure but most of it was destroyed – this was all that was left.” Minseok looks confused, rightfully so because the last any of them had known, there was no such thing as a vaccine, let alone a cure. “I’ll explain on the way back, we have to get out of here. Pronto.” He rushes past Minseok, who ends up grabbing his arm and keeping him from going further, causing everyone to look at them. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t you know what happened to the rest of the team?”

Junmyeon furrows his brow but Baekhyun answers before, “we already know what happened to them. They were captured.”

Before anyone can even say another word, a deep chuckle comes from behind the vehicle and their attention is grabbed by Jongin walking out with you in front of him. His pistol is pressed to your temple and his hand is securely around your throat, one squeeze away from breaking your wind pipe. “Guess the cat is out of the bag, huh?” Struggling, you try and get out of his hold but Jongin’s too strong, unnaturally strong, and the more you struggle, the tighter his hold on your throat gets. “Ah, ah, don’t ruin the fun now, sweetheart, we’ve only just begun.”

Everyone draws their weapons, pointing them at Jongin which also means they are pointing them at you. “Let her go.” Junmyeon commands which only makes Jongin laugh, raising an eyebrow in question. “Let her go or else we shoot.”

“Oh, please do, if you shoot then we both go down. What a romantic but tragic end~ Romeo and Juliet. Wouldn’t that be sweet?” He chuckles lowly in your ear which causes you to push and try to pull away but his smile soon fades and he playfully drags his teeth against the skin of your neck. “Careful now, all your struggling is making me hungry.” He warns, effectively causing you to stop moving.

Fear rushes through you, causing you to bite down so harshly on your tongue to keep yourself from screaming and giving him another reason to shut you up. This isn’t Jongin, this isn’t your Jongin but damn, he played the role well enough to convince you – or maybe he only had to play it enough to pass suspicion considering you had just lost someone you saw as a sister and then watch Sehun die before you. Yes, there it is. The realisation that he was playing on your loss. The fact that the cuts and bruises were all on the same side of his body – self-inflicted. There was more blood on him than there would have been if those wounds really did bleed. That’s why his story seemed to have so many holes in it that you should have seen through it clearly but you didn’t, you were so happy to have Jongin in your arms that you didn’t notice that there were so many things that didn’t add up now that you think about it.

“You may as well drop those guns, I’m not here to kill any of you – you’d be dead if that was the case.” Jongin says, sounding completely at ease with the situation. That does make sense considering he’s not really Jongin.

He’s dead. This is his reanimated corpse without a soul, basically.

Minseok scoffs, finger resting lightly on the trigger, “and why on Earth would we do that?”

“Because I’m coming back with you.” Everyone pauses, looking at him in surprise which causes a twisted grin to spread across his lips, “telling you the whole plan would ruin the fun but I can tell you that it’s too late. Everyone has already moved on and taken what they need with them because you see, killing and turning our food source isn’t really sustainable in the long run. No, it’s time to play the long game.” You wince with disgust when Jongin’s tongue runs along the curve of your neck and before you can think too much, you throw your head back, hearing the satisfying sound of his nose breaking. His grip lessens enough that you manage to get out of his grip and rush towards the safety of your team… or what’s left of them. “Feisty little bitch, aren’t you? Where’s that been in the bedroom, huh?”

“There’s no escape, Kai. Give us the gun and come quietly.” Junmyeon commands and Jongin teases them, pointing the gun at each of them and making a pew each time he moves his gun on, pretending to pick each of the team off one by one.

While the team slowly closes in on Jongin, who has his hands in the air, he looks at you and decides to play on your feelings one last time. “You can save me, Y/N.” He says, eyes flickering down to the kit attached to Junmyeon’s belt. Your eyes follow his and it seems like Junmyeon catches on to what he’s trying to get at and looks at you, shaking his head.

“No, he’s lying.” He dodges you when you try to get the kit.

Laughing, Jongin lets himself get grabbed, “no, I’m not. The zombies didn’t destroy all the vials of the cure, did they? I bet the last of them are in that handy little kit for you to take back to the labs and have their team finish what the scientist here started.”

You look at Junmyeon, appalled that he’s got something that can save Jongin and didn’t immediately offer to give it him. “There’s a very good-” He jumps out of the way, trying hard to explain himself but the words never manage to get out when because you are hysteric, cursing at him for keeping the cure to himself when someone who needs it is right there.

It’s true that Jongin is the only person who can get under your skin, who can push all the buttons and pull your strings, having you react how he wants you to. Never in all the years that you’ve known each other has he ever used this to his advantage like this, never has he manipulated you into doing something you would never do otherwise. All professionalism is out the window as you think about how you could save him, cure him and have your boyfriend back because you can’t lose him – not him and he knows this. He knows how much you’ve suffered and how much you’ve lost over the years and how hard you take those losses so losing Jongin? There is no way you would come back from that.

“It’ll kill him, Y/N,” Baekhyun shouts as Jongin clicks his tongue and mutters ‘spoil-sport under his breath, “we watched a recording of them giving it to someone and the risk of death is higher than him surviving.” You stop and fall to your knees, realisation hitting you that you’ve truly lost him. Jongin isn’t coming back. Even if he’s standing there before you, that’s not the man you love but merely the shell of him, twisted and unrecognisable.

“Then what happens next?” You ask, defeated while Minseok places a reassuring hand on your shoulder.

Junmyeon sighs as Baekhyun and Kyungsoo force Jongin to walk towards the truck, “we’ll find out what we can and do what we can to bring him back to us.” You know that’s a long shot and the tears begin to fall as you stare at the ground, the pain that you’ve kept at bay all this time, hitting you with full force.

“Do you think I want to live like this? What have I always said? I’d rather be dead than a zombie!” Jongin yells and your entire body shakes as the sobs take over.

You can’t do this. Not again. You can’t keep living like this.

Allowing Jongdae to help you up and towards the vehicle, you hear nothing but Jongin’s words in your head. It was a promise. You both had promised on your first day as partners, if you ever got infected then the other would be the one to make sure you died and stayed dead but you can’t do that… you can’t kill the man you love…

“It took you long enough.” Jongin chuckles, hearing the click of the safety and turning to face the barrel of the pistol, grinning at he looks at the person on the other side of his cell. “I was beginning to wonder if you had forgotten about little old me.” He presses his forehead against the muzzle and looks at the person wearing a mask. “Is everything in order?”

They take off their mask, Chanyeol nodding his head as he rests his finger against the trigger. “Yes, thanks to you, everything is going according to plan.”

Looking at his old friend, Jongin sighs in relief, “good.” Closing his eyes, he accepts his final part of the plan – creating the perfect distraction.

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tlbodine · 4 years

Text

Of Course We’re Angry

In 2016, I remember having a heated argument with my brother on Facebook. I don’t remember exactly what started it, but we were clashing heads over the Democratic primary. He, a Clinton supporter, had just called me a gender traitor for continuing to support Sanders -- that my unexamined latent misogyny is the only possible reason why I might oppose her candidacy.

“It’s not that,” I remember trying to explain, confused and alarmed to be having this argument with my brother. “It’s just that I like Bernie. He stands for all of the things that I value! He’s like the Mockingjay of our revolution.”

My brother questioned why I thought we needed a revolution.

I wondered how he could possibly think we didn’t.

They feed us all of these stories about plucky revolutionaries, and then balk when people start to protest.

If you didn’t want a revolution, you shouldn’t have raised us with Robin Hood, Harry Potter, Star Wars and The Hunger Games.

When V for Vendetta said, “Governments should fear their people,” we listened.

Did you expect us not to?

The thing you have to understand about Millennials is that many of us feel we have nothing to lose; we do not believe in the future.

Everything we were raised to expect turned out to be a lie. We were told, “Study hard, go to college, and get a good job. You don’t want to grow up to be a garbage man.” And so we did. More than half of us went to college, more than any previous generation. We studied science and arts and humanities, and then graduated into a world where no one respected science, no one valued art, and no one had any humanity.

We graduated with crushing debt into a massive recession. The jobs we were promised did not exist. The college diploma, once a guarantee of higher pay, became the minimum requirement at every office job and call center.

All of my friends have college degrees. All of us make less than $15/hr. Very few of us have children. Even fewer can afford houses. Many of us had to move in with our parents, and some have never been able to leave. Some of my friends have been unemployed or working the gig economy since 2008 -- people who are no longer counted among the unemployed, a whole lost generation of young people. None of us will be able to retire. Most of us do not have health insurance. Many of us do not have credit.

And we are the lucky ones.

We are the privileged. We are not being murdered on the streets and in our homes.

But we are, in our own small way, also victims of the robber barons of a ruling class that profits off of suffering and enforces its cruelty with a corrupt legal system.

You told us to go to college, and so we did. We studied history and economics and literature and learned how the world was made by Black people and brown people and women and LGBT people.

Occupy Wallstreet.

Black Lives Matter.

If you didn’t want us to protest, why were the rebels the heroes in all of the stories?

In 2018, scientists told us we had 20 years to solve global warming or the damage would be unstoppable. Climate change is a looming existential threat, a potential end date to our survival on this planet, but we don’t have the time or the resources of the energy to deal with that right now because we’re a little busy with a pandemic, a race war, a national recession and an opioid crisis. We’re a little exhausted because we’ve been alive for 17 of the 25 deadliest mass shootings and instead of passing gun laws, we’re manufacturing bullet-proof backpacks for children. We’re a little tired because we’re working low-wage jobs for corporations that earn billions of dollars and don’t pay taxes.

“Make America Great Again,” Donald Trump said, and he was a goddamn liar.

But Clinton said, “America is already great!”

And still people did not understand why young people didn’t want to vote for her.

We say: Burn it to the ground.

We say: Bring back the guillotine.

We say: No justice, no peace.

And somehow, still, people are shocked to consider that we mean it.

The thing you have to understand is that when you don’t believe you have a future, you don’t have anything to lose.

It’s May 31, 2020, and the nation is on fire.

Literally. There are buildings and vehicles burning in cities across the country. Protests, looting, rioting, police driving into crowds, fights breaking out, National Guard deployment. Some people have been injured. Some have died. Of the four police present at the death of George Floyd, only one has been arrested.

105,557 people are dead in the USA of COVID-19. Hospitals are using trash bags as PPE and can’t afford ventilators, but the police have a seemingly endless supply of riot gear, rubber bullets, and tear gas.

=====

EDITED TO ADD:

It’s unclear how and why all of the property damage is occurring at these protests. From reports, it seems clear that there are bad actors stepping into the protests to agitate and escalate. Who they are seems up for debate -- antifa, police, disaffected white people, anarchists, whoever. This shit is not OK and it is going to get Black people arrested and/or killed.

I want to make it extremely clear that my post above is not written to promote violence or excuse the behavior of white people causing trouble at these protests. This is not about us, and our anger should not be speaking over Black protesters or putting them at harm.

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toribun · 4 years

Text

αγάπη

words:: 4,6k

Pairing:: idol!/soulmate!Jimin x soulmate!reader

Warnings:: swearing, talk about social anxiety, some bad talk about chimchim, a mention about becoming lesbian, future angst, future smut.

a/n :: my first language is not English. So this likely contains a gazillion spelling mistakes.

CHAPTER 1

You feel the sand and salt in the wind. The wind has picked up since you first came outside to sit on the floor of your terrace. You sat with your legs crossed and the envelope in your hands.

It was heavier than you had imagined.

Your tailbone was starting to ache from sitting on the stone floor for too long. You started to regret not buying that outdoor chair you liked from the marked in town. It was way too expensive though, and probably wouldn’t be used that much either. You preferred to sit inside with the air conditioner on anyway.

You didn’t know how long you have been sitting here, but it was long enough for the little neighbor girl to eat up her ice cream and run down to the edge of the beach. She couldn’t be more than five or six years old.

The situation was not something you could avoid anymore as you have done for the last twenty years. You were lucky really. Some got their soulmate announced before they could even talk. You thought about all the helpless parents of little girls losing their daughters before they had even gotten a chance at truly knowing them. You thought about all the little girls that would forget about their mommy and daddy, only to know their soulmate's family. Being raised by a family that isn’t theirs.

You were one of the lucky girls. But you still couldn’t help feeling sorry for yourself as you opened the mailbox to find a letter from TISO. You have been having nightmares about that specific letter for as long as you can remember. You were quite young to be getting a letter from them. The average age was around thirty years. Then again there were babies being matched up, you were just younger than average.

A couple of weeks ago you came over a news article about a soulmate couple in Brazil that got their letters at the age of fifty-seven. Making them the oldest matched soulmates in recorded history.

When you reach the age of forty TISO stops taking you in for the yearly meetings, and you are considered to be one of the unlucky ones. One of the few that has a soulmate that died before getting to meet them.

However, even though TISO stops taking you in for the yearly meetings doesn’t mean that they stop looking for your soulmate.

They still look but makes it quite clear that the chances of your soulmate still being alive are slim.

The science of soulmates is ancient. Dating back as far as the 11th century, as far as we know. But many people strongly believe that Adam and Eva were the first soulmates and that it has never been humans existing without a soulmate. Thousands of years later humanity has grown and humans living in the late 18th century figured they needed a system where humans where in charge of helping everyone find their soulmates.

It wasn’t an option anymore to let people do it on their own when the chances of one succeeding were so little with the growing population.

Country’s all over the world began to work together to fight the growing crisis of humans that fail to find their soulmates.

And after many years in the making, the scientists finally made a breakthrough. They found that you can find similarities between the soulmate's blood patterns, brain activity, and even things like pain reaction, reflexes, and responsiveness to sensibility.

And so TISO was born. One huge building in each and every capital in the world. The headquarter located in London, England.

To this day, only upgrades in the technology have been made as changes in the organization. The mission that TISO stands for and how they check for matches is still the same as when they first started.

The system requires us to come in once a year on the same date to give an interview, get blood taken, do a full medical exam, and take pictures. And with that, they set to work.

You have always dreaded the day you would open your mailbox to find that letter. Not really seeing it as a blessing as so many others do. You didn’t want a letter. You wanted to be able to travel wherever you want, live with your family and loved ones, and be free from the responsibilities of having a soulmate.

As a woman, you are forced to move in with the male as soon as possible after receiving the letter. The reason is that males have a connection with their soulmates even before touching them. Women don’t get that connection before they touch their soulmate. Having gotten to know your soulmates is out there starts a reaction in males’ body. Making their body temperature higher. After a couple of days of no physical contact with their soulmate, the males start getting more out of control and are forced by TISO to go into self-isolation for the safety of others.

However, as a woman, you can request being given extra time if you live in another country, have a sick family member, or have another valid reason to ask TISO for more time. Though it considered one of the most disrespectful things to do as a soulmate, especially when the male is suffering the consequences of the woman’s choice. So, a lot of women don’t request more time, simply too afraid to be judged by society, her soulmate, and her soulmate's family.

You were currently on your terrace in Greece. You have lived here in the summer months working with your aunt in the family-owned beach bar for the last three years. You were getting tired of your own country and needed an escape. Working as a bartender in a beach bar the whole summer didn’t sound so bad at the time. Though you quickly understood how wrong you were after only a week of work in the scorching sun.

Luckily you are now only given the night shifts so that you can avoid working in the sun all day. Your body simply not built for weather like this. You didn’t grow up in a country with a hot climate, and it strongly shows. On the few occasions you had gone out in the sun in the middle of the day, you always ended up with a sunburn on the tip of your nose and the tips of your ears. Your cheeks were also victims of the sun, becoming bright pink and making you look like you were constantly blushing.

You never imaged that you would get the letter when staying here. You always imagined that you would get your letter at home on a cold winter day. When everything else was as depressing as the letter itself. You thought that you would be a closer distance to your mom. So that you could read the letter with her.

It’s funny how things never end up happening the way you imagine them.

The beige-colored envelope that laid in your lap had your name on it in beautiful calligraphy letters. TISO’s logo was printed on in the left corner. The black, white, and gold logo are so familiar to you. The envelope looked expensive, or at least more expensive than the ones you usually buy at the post office. You took a look at TISO’s logo again. This was the letter, it was no questioning it.

Your hands were beginning to shake as you lifted up the heavy envelope and put your thumb under the right side of the opening and pushed it up. You dragged your thumb from the right corner all the way to the left. Then put your hand inside to drag out the pages inside.

The first word that catches your attention is the word “congratulations”. It was printed on in big, black letters on the very first page of the fairly thick stack of papers. It was almost mocking you.

Who was in charge of designing the letters sent out, because it really wasn’t necessary with those big letters.

What a waste of ink.

Your move from the floor to sit down in the stairwell instead. The wind coming from the ocean is tossing your hair back and forth.

You could see your aunt's bar at the end of the beach. And your uncle’s car parked the small parking lot behind it. Your uncle almost never drove that car unless he brought friends with him. Always saying that the gas prices in the small island are ridiculously high and that he would never pay for it unless it was absolutely necessary. Though you didn’t understand how driving friends to the beach bar was considered necessary for him.

Your small and simple house was only a notch up from being on the beach. Whitestone walls and two floors. Still, you could barely fit the bed on the second floor, and it was honestly a miracle that you had enough space for the couch on the first floor.

The small town you spent your summers in was located on a hill with a long sand beach at the bottom. The house you rented was owned by an old lady living in the house just a few meters up from you. She would always pinch your cheeks whenever you visited her, making you blush. She lived alone now. She had two daughters but both of them got matched young with a soulmate living on the other side of the world. She barely got to see them as both of their soulmates had important jobs and didn’t let them travel alone. Her soulmate died just a couple of years before you got here. It seems like a sad way to die, no soulmate or family around. You find yourself wishing to only give birth to boys. You didn’t want to end up alone like her.

You took a look at the beach. It was filled with tourists sunbathing and swimming in the ocean and lots of kids running on the white sand. You could only imagine how hot that sand must be now. The clock was half-past eleven in the morning. It had to be at least thirty-seven degrees Celsius outside. You have burned your feet on that sand more times than you can count. You could feel the sand in the air as the wind picked up again. You looked down at your hands again and began reading the first page.

“Congratulations (y/n) (y/l/n). We are pleased to inform you that we have made a match between you and your soulmate”

“In the next pages, you will find all the information you need. If you have any questions regarding this letter you can contact us via our mail. We do appreciate that you only use our helpline number for emergencies. Thank you for your cooperation.

TISO”

You flip the page and felt your stomach drop to the bottom of the ocean. Your heart skipped a beat.

“Name: Park Ji-min (박지민)”

“Birthplace: Busan, South Korea”

“Currently lives: Seoul, South Korea”

“Languages: Korean”

He lives in South Korea and only speak Korean.

Well, fuck.

You continued to read. The information listed everything from blood type, hobbies, bank account number, social security number, family members, and occupation. The next ten pages were just filled to the brim with so much personal information. It honestly is a little scary to have this much information on paper about someone you don’t even know. It made you feel like some FBI agent going undercover. You felt like you were reading a file on the target for the mission. They shouldn’t be allowed to send this much personal information about someone over the fucking mail. It made you a little nervous. Thinking about the letter that includes all of your information, just traveling around the mail on the other side of the world. If the letter you got has his bank account number, that means that the letter he got has yours as well.

You thought back to all the money that you had used on food the last months. You remember telling yourself that you deserved all of that fast food because of your hard day at work. It was a horrible excuse honestly. And now you must suffer the consequences. He probably thinks you weigh a thousand kilos now and are just wobbling around Greece. You face palmed yourself and let out a groan of annoyance.

You flipped through the words on the next few pages. Not really bothering to read everything as attentively. The letter was making you uncomfortable. It felt wrong to snoop around in someone else’s business. Even if he was your soulmate. You know you would not be happy if someone snooping through your personal shit. But then again that probably exactly what he was doing on the other side of the world right now.

How much was the clock in Korea if it was almost twelve in the morning here? Surely it must be night. You hoped it was so that you can have a few more hours to mentally prepare for the image of him reading and judging every decision you have ever made.

Oh God, what a fucking disaster.

You came to a page viewing all of his bank transactions for the last 3 months and his income. You started biting the very tips of your fingers to try to calm yourself down. If your horrible way of spending your money wasn’t enough of an embarrassment, he just had to be a fucking millionaire. that’s just fantastic isn’t. Here you were working your ass off by making cocktails all night to rude tourists, just so you don’t die from starvation. While he was on the other side of the world bathing in money. He was probably a butthole. Most rich people are.

Why does he have to be rich, it makes this whole situation a thousand times worse. You know that asking TISO for more time now was useless. You and everybody else on this planet know that TISO favored the rich and famous. Always giving them special treatment. They tell people like you that it’s nothing they can do to speed up the process of matching soulmates, but then tell people like them that they will do it for an insanely big amount of money. That’s why so many rich people have kids that aren’t theirs. They just bribe TISO and get their son's soulmates as young as possible. It truly disgusts you.

Has he given any money to TISO? To speed things up? You were not that young but then again you were not that old either.

You turned back to the second page where the information about his occupation was.

“Occupation: singer, producer, songwriter, dancer”

“Works for: BigHit Entertainment, Co”

Before you could process any of the information you just read, your phone started ringing. The number was unfamiliar to you but was a Greek number. Even though you had spent the whole summer here for three years you didn’t have that many friends here. It was a small town and most of its inhabitants were forty years and up, making it I bit hard to find someone to just hang out with. You could’ve tried to make friends with some of the tourists but they would all just travel back to their home country’s after two- or three-weeks tops. The few people that you had befriended on the small island is already in your contact.

You let the person calling to voicemail, but as soon as the ringing stopped it started again. You had a small phone phobia, not really feeling too comfortable with talking to someone you didn’t know the face of. Texting was more your cup of tea. Is was less of a commitment, and nobody would question you if you used a little extra time to answer a question. If you just stopped responding to think while talking to someone on the phone, they would think that you were crazy.

When the person called for the third time you decided to pick up. Maybe it was just someone calling the wrong number or maybe your aunt or uncle’s phone died and they needed to call you. Maybe they borrowed a phone from a customer. Or maybe one of your friends have switched number.

“Hello?”

You said into the speaker of the phone. You tried to sound as confident as possible. What if it was a seller? Oh no, you hated phone sellers. You always become nervous and then end up buying shit you don’t need.

“Hello, am I talking to (y/n) (y/l/n)”

it was a woman on the other end. Her voice is quite dark pitched for a woman. She had a small accent you notice as she said your name. It sounded almost like a French accent, not anything like the Greek accent you have grown so used to over your stay in Greece.

“Yes, that’s me. Is there anything I can help you with? Do I know you?”

God, you sound so nervous (y/n), she is gonna think you are a ten-year-old girl that stole her mother’s phone. Honestly is it possible to get higher pitched?

“Oh, that’s great, I was afraid I called the wrong number for a second there. I tried to call you two times before but you didn’t pick up”

great thank you very much for making me feel great about myself.

“Y-yeah, sorry, I.. um... I was on the toilet”

you are really nailing this phone call (y/n), why don’t you just say you masturbated in the shower while you are at it.

You fucking idiot.

“Sorry for disturbing you then miss (y/l/n). I am really happy you picked up the phone. I have some things to discuss with you. It’s quite important you see”

she was talking fast. It almost seemed like she was excited. Is it okay to ask someone to talk slower? Or is that considered rude? Maybe she will think I am bullying her because of her accent.

“Mm.,” you said. Slightly dragging the m out and then taking it up and down to sound interested.

“Okay so, I am a manager working under BigHit entertainment. I am calling you because one of our employees just got his soulmate letter with your name on the first page. I would like to congratulate you and would love to have a meeting with you as soon as possible to discuss your move to South Korea”

I just had to stop her there.

“Umm excuse me, but you are not allowed to contact me at the moment, there are rules against that. None of you are allowed to have any contact with me before the move. I would love for you to spread the message to the rest of the company you are working for, thanks”

It is true. TISO doesn’t have a lot of rules for us to follow but there were a few basic ones that everyone knew. One of them is that no contact is to be made between the newly matched soulmates before they are actually able to meet face to face. That also includes friends or family of the soulmates. It protects the female's time with their family and loved ones before she had to move. You could actually report them for this shit.

“Well, actually I am allowed to. You see I don’t know your soulmate personality and are not related to him in any way. But anyway, I am truly honored to be chosen to take this call today miss (y/l/n) you should know that.”

Before I can ask her why she continued on.

“I am not sure you are aware of this miss (y/l/n) but your soulmate is really important for our company. And that makes you important for us too. We would like you to know that we will do anything and everything to make this time as comfortable as possible for you until you are safe in the arms of Jimin. We will take care of everything that needs to be done so that you don’t need to be stressed for the next few days. Remember that Jimin’s bond with you has now started, meaning that you need to be were careful with what you do in the next few days. We don’t want him to be getting more nervous than he already is”

She breathes out. Then in again.

Is there an off button on this human?

“Our CEO has already booked the flights for you and has hired a moving crew to help you pack everything ready. Your plane leaves in two days. I am going to personally be picking you up and taking care of you the whole journey. You have nothing to worry about now miss (y/l/n) you are now officially a part of the BigHit family, we will be taking care of you from now on. Jimin is very excited to meet you and is now making sure that everything is ready for your arrival. He has been waiting a long time for you miss (y/l/n). The whole company is so glad that he finally received his letter.”

She sounds so excited, but at the same time, it almost felt like she is reading an IKIA manual or something. It’s just so much, how could she possibly remember what to say without a script.

She has to be reading from a script.

She started to talk again.

“I am on my way to the airport at this very moment miss (y/l/n) and will be at your house with the moving crew and security guards tomorrow morning. You can save this number to your contact as Mrs.Kim. If you need anything or have any questions you can call this number at any time.”

I try to pick up enough courage before opening my mouth to speak.

“Umm... listen Mrs.Kim. I don’t mean to be a party pooper but I would really appreciate if you don’t come. And also, if you could tell your boss that’s I appreciate his effort and all that, but I get free airplane tickets from TISO before the move. So, him buying extra tickets really Isn’t necessary. And also, I plan on contacting TISO about getting more time with my family before the move because I haven’t seen them in a while... So yeah..”

Mrs.Kim let out a surprised breath.

“You can’t possibly mean that miss (y/l/n)”

You interrupt her. Why does she have to be so formal? It made you feel old.

“Can you please just call me (y/n), it is no need to talk so formally with me...please”

You could image Mrs.Kim nodding her head. Maybe You were wrong but it helped you to calm down your nerves a little bit to have a face to the voice you are talking to.

“(Y/n), it is really important that you don’t do that. You have no idea what that would do to our company. We can’t have a soulmate to one of our biggest idols asking for more time away from them. Do you have any idea who bad that would be? It would be on the cover of every magazine and newspaper in the whole world. Not to mention how much it would blow up on social media. (Y/n) you have to understand that we are moving as fast as we can to make sure that you are safe. And to make sure that nobody is able to hurt you in any way before your arrival in Korea. You would have already been on a plane here right now if we had gotten to decide the whole process.”

Magazine and newspaper? Who the hell is this guy you got matched with?

“What do you mean for my safety? And what do you mean it’s going to be the cover of magazines? What the hell is going on”

You raised your voice at the end, looking to the neighbors to see if they were looking at you. They were all inside now, abandoning the heat of the sun for the air conditioner. You should do that too, but you were worried that your legs might fail you if you tried to stand up now.

“(Y/n) don’t you have any idea who Jimin is? He is an idol (y/n), a really successful idol. He is a celebrity, and every fan he has around the world has been waiting patiently for this moment to happen for many years (y/n). That means that the first thing the media is going to do when the new match is made public in TISO’s archive eighteen hours from now is going to find you. They need pictures, backstory, family, and everything else they can get their hands on. Doing this alone isn’t an option we are willing to give you (y/n). So, you can contact TISO if you want, but I think you already know that our lawyers have a million reasons to give to TISO on why it is a horrible decision to give you more time.”

The guy is famous. Your soulmate is famous and you have a fear of cameras, not even letting your closest family take pictures of you. How the hell are you paired with a guy that has a camera up his ass twenty-four seven? It doesn’t make any sense.

She was right though. You would never win against their lawyers.

“O-okay. When are you going to be here again? I wouldn’t contact TISO... I promise”

Your voice was back to normal, as you tried to focus on not fainting by how stressed you currently are.

“I am going to be there in thirteen hours. Just calm down okay? I am bringing a full security team with me, you are going to be safe. TISO doesn’t publish any private information about you, just your name, and confirmation on who your soulmate is. If you lay low and don’t talk about this to anyone, we should be fine. Can you do that (y/n)?

“Yes,” you answered.

Mrs.Kim told you once more to relax and that I had nothing to worry about before she hangs up the phone.

You stand up to move inside again, picking up all the papers laying on the stairs. Your butt has fallen asleep and your tailbone hurts beyond imagination. You didn’t realize how long you had been sitting outside, too caught up in the phone call you just had.

You didn’t know what to think or do after that conversation. You had promised that you wouldn’t contact TISO and even though you wished you could, you knew that Mrs.Kim was right. You had no chance of winning a lawsuit against them.

You knew you couldn’t travel back home to your parent’s ether, you were not allowed to travel anywhere except to him after you had received that letter.

You would have to be with him for the next two months too, no travel or working for more than four hours a day. This period was known as the resting period. This is the time when the soulmate bond is the most fragile. The newly matched couple need to bond before they can go back to normal.

And after you had settled in South Korea in the resting period, you would need permission from your soulmate that he allowed you to travel unaccompanied.

You knew it would be a while before you could travel back home again. And if this ‘Jimin’ guy was one of those possessive soulmates, then maybe you would never be able to travel home again.

The thought made you sad. You shouldn’t have started working here in the summers. You should have just spent as much time with your parents as possible.

And with that in though you called your mom. You had to warn her about what’s about to come.

#jimin x reader #jimin #bts soulmate au #bts soulmate #park jimin #soulmate #soulmate!jimin #bts idol!au #jimin idol!au #chimchim #bts senarios #bts reactions #jimin fluff #jimin imagine #bts fanfction #bts fanfic

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snowdice · 5 years

Text

The Horror of Stereotypes (Part 1)[Dice Roll 6]

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Remus/Logan/Patton with Remus/Logan focus (more pre-romantic considering the situation), Remus & Roman, Logan/Patton (established, but not at the forefront for most of it)

Characters:

Main: Remus, Logan

Appear: Roman, Patton, Deceit (but blink and you’ll miss it)

Summary: There had always been a certain stereotype about people like him for as long as anyone could remember. After the Heart War of 1963, those stereotypes had been legalized and places like this had been created to enforce the universal truth: everyone had a soulmate. One soulmate. No more and no less.

At least they were supposed to.

When Remus’s brother gets arrested because of his two soulmarks, Remus risks everything by infiltrating the facility he legally should be in as well due to his own two soulmates to save him. There he meets Logan and it turns out they have a lot in common: they both got hired this week, they both have two soulmates, and they’re both here for the same reason.

Oh. And as it turns out, they’re each other’s soulmates too.

Universe: Soulmate AU

Genre: Horror (Yeah, it’s a fun combo. The horror vibe is mostly contained to chapter 3 though. It’s all still horrifying, but that specific tone is pretty much only there.)

Notes: Torture, Torture of a main character, Dystopian, Blood, Guns, Gunshot wounds, Leg wounds, Mentions of Desecrating an Animal Corpse by a Main Character, Imprisonment, Mentions of Cannibalism, Genocide Suggested, Sexual Innuendo, Fear, A tasteless but not serious incest joke, Medical procedures.

...

Goodness my tags were already horrifying enough because of the darkness of this universe and concept of this AU and then Remus started talking...

This is part of my Roll the Dice Event which is where I do random ships, universe, and genres for the Sanders Sides fandom. For more details see this post. I posted a few days ago my results from this dice roll here.

In which I once again do a dice roll that ends up not being a one-shot like it’s supposed to be... This is going to be 6 parts...

Getting into the building had been easy for Remus. Remus had a special set of skills that he’d never really thought of as skills until he was sitting in a little office right outside the main gate of this facility spouting off every one of his worst possible thoughts in extensive detail during a job interview. They listened to him for less than half an hour before deciding he was perfect for the job and two days later, here he was.

His tour guide chatted and chatted happily to him seeming not to question his contentment with his surroundings. She’d probably gotten a peak at his file after all.

Remus had always been… a weird child at best and the “bonkers evil twin” at worst. Almost everyone in his life tended to give him a wide berth since he was younger. Honestly, you hang one dead cat you found on the road on the middle school flag and suddenly you’re a pariah. It’s not like he’d killed the cat. In fact, he’d loved Senior Bitey when he’d been alive and knew for a fact that it was the type of funeral the feral little thing would have wanted. It was one more chance to put terror into the hearts of all the children in the school. He’d attempted to explain his reasoning to the school counselor. He didn’t think he’d done a good job at that.

Later in life he’d been “guided” toward more “productive” outlets for the dark thoughts that sometimes rattled in his head. He was given a pen and told to write down stories. Remus had taken to this suggestion with gusto and quickly learned not to let anybody read them. His high school biology teacher had been a bit weirded out by how enthused he was about dissection days, but he scored well on the AP test and got the highest marks, so she was willing to write him a letter of recommendation that helped him get into college with a biology major. He’d thought about becoming a coroner or forensic scientist, but when he’d turned 18 and his soulmark… well, soulmarks he guessed… had shown up, he’d decided that he really shouldn’t be doing anything that would put him in such close contact with law enforcement.

So much for that, he thought and glanced at his tour guide. “And last I’ll show you the upstairs housing!” she was telling him. “It’s for the multis who have already gone through processing and interrogation and are now on work detail.” When they walked into the next building, Remus did his best to pretend to look without actually making himself look. For all his notebooks full of bloody stories and horrifying abstract musings and his memories of dissected frogs, cats, and pigs, actual human suffering was not something Remus relished. Yet, he still smiled at the woman who was gaily guiding him through the prison that legally Remus himself belonged in.

See, there had always been a certain stereotype about people like him for as long as anyone could remember. After the Heart War of 1963, those stereotypes had been legalized and places like this had been created to enforce the universal truth: everyone had a soulmate. One soulmate. No more and no less.

At least they were supposed to.

But for a universal truth, different things happened at a surprisingly high frequency. There were people who didn’t fit the mold. They were broken. Like Remus.

There were people who grew up to not have any soulmarks. Since soulmarks appearing were the cut off for adulthood, legally these people never became adults. Once they turned 18 and no soulmark presented, they had no legal right to basically anything. They couldn’t own property or make decisions for themselves. They weren’t allowed to attend school anymore, and they couldn’t get jobs. Their parents could decide they didn’t want to deal with them anymore, and if they did so, the soulmarkless people were either put into a shelter or left to die on the streets. Remus wasn’t sure which option was better honestly.

Then there were people with multiple soulmates. They were monsters. They were selfish, immoral, and deranged. For most of his life, Remus had accepted this as fact. He probably would have gone on believing it even after he got two soulmarks himself on his eighteenth birthday. After all, people had been telling him all his life he was a monster.

Then his brother had gotten two as well.

If Remus was the evil twin, Roman was the good one. He was kind and enthusiastic in his love for other people and the world around him. He’d become an EMT during the day and was an actor on the side. His creations brought people joy and happiness. He was everything good in the world. Everything Remus could never quite be.

And he had two soulmates. Just like Remus.

So, fuck the world, honestly. In particular, fuck tour guides cheerily guiding him through the first level of hell who would have definitely run away from him if she’d met him on the street. Would she have jeered at him that he was crazy and disgusting all through middle school? She may have been right, but at least he knew it. He could draw the line between the evil in his head and what he put into the world. Her though? Her head was probably clear as white snow. She probably just followed orders and didn’t think about it. Her brain probably skipped right over the sights and sounds before her and never lingered. Remus thought dark thoughts, but he also didn’t ignore them when they came to life.

“This of course isn’t where you’ll be working,” his guide went on with a grin. “The people up here don’t know anything or already gave up what they do know. So, you’ll really not have much to do with it. You could use it as a reward offer though if you ever want to play good cop.”

This was the reward, Remus wondered with disgust. It wasn’t even a prison. It was a pig pen at best and a slaughterhouse at worst. Human suffering was pouring off these cement walls and, though Remus talked a good game and kept a smile on his face, it turned his stomach.

His brother was probably in one of these pens somewhere and that was the best-case scenario. You’d think, Remus though grimly, that the brother who was an actor would have been the one able to pull off the lie the longest. But no.

“Anyway, that’s the end of the tour. Well, except the two floors downstairs. You’ll need to wait for your pass to get there. It’ll take about two to three days.”

“Can’t wait,” Remus said.

She smiled at him and swiped her keycard to open a door into a much cleaner area before leading him down a hallway. “So, now, I’m going to introduce you to your team. It’s actually a very fun thing!” Fun. “You should be excited to be a part of it. We’re expanding the facility and we’re thinking of separating them all out by class. You’re going to be tasked with helping design a whole new wing for the 4 and ups.”

“Fantastic!” Remus gushed. “I’m surprised you’re letting the new guy in on it.”

“Well, the higher ups wanted fresh ideas for this, so we went out and got people in the tops of their fields specifically for this project,” she explained. “Most of your teammates have been working for us less than a month except for your boss Gavin. He’s been working with us for almost five years and was transferred to this office specifically for this project. Speaking of,” she said swiping her keycard at a door so it opened into a fancy looking office space. “Gavin!” she called. “I have your new interrogator here!”

A man turned and his eyes flickered to Remus. There was something off about him even more so than the sickly-sweet guide who ignored the horrors happening around her every day. He paused for just a moment too long before he gave Remus a wide, predatory smile. “Hello,” he said, his voice smooth and low. He walked over to them. “Gavin,” he introduced himself, his eyes studying Remus intently.

Remus plastered on a smile. “Nice to meet you,” he said with a wink.

Gavin chuckled a bit. “Thank you, Beatrice. I’ll take him from here.”

‘Beatrice’ apparently (Remus hadn’t bothered to learn or remember her name before.), nodded and quickly left the office back the way she’d came.

After that, Gavin showed him around the office, introducing him to normal looking people doing normal looking things. That more than anything he’d seen today make a shiver go up Remus’s spine. They all acted like normal people, but any one of them would happily annihilate Remus on the spot if they learned about the soulmark he hid on his back in addition to the one on his forearm. They’d likely helped harm his brother in some way in the last two weeks over the coffee and donuts in the corner of this very pretty office.

Once Remus had seen most of the office and been introduced to most of the people in it, Gavin led him into a different room off to the side. This room was something out of a science fiction movie. It had a giant screen across an entire wall with a 3-D blueprint pulled up of a building and a bunch of text scrolling down the side. At the console in the center of the room stood a man in a dress shirt and tie.

He turned emotionless eyes on Remus and Gavin as they came into the room. Remus barely kept himself from tensing to run. This man looked dead inside, like someone had stolen his soul and left him an empty husk.

“And this is Logan Berry,” Gavin introduced. “He’s the head architect for this project. You two will likely be working closely for a lot of this venture. Logan, this is Remus Prince. He is an interrogator who will be consulting with us.”

Something flickered across the stoic man’s face, but it was gone in an instant. “Salutations,” Logan said, sticking out his arm.

“Sup,” Remus replied, reaching forward to shake his hand. The moment that they touched, Remus felt warmth bloom across his lower back where he knew his hidden soulmark was. He met Logan’s eyes which were suddenly wide and not nearly as emotionless as they had been just moments before. Terror had immediately broken through whatever mask he’d been wearing. Oh, Remus thought. Remus had just met one of his soulmates, and clearly, he also had more than just one soulmate as well judging by the fear in his eyes. Remus swallowed and pulled away his hand. “Nice to meet you Nerd,” he said with a careless shrug, “or whatever.” He saw Logan take a small breath and then the mask slipped back into place.

“Likewise,” he said, voice impressively monotone.

Gavin clapped his hands once, not seeming to notice anything off. “Well, we have a lot of work to do today gentlemen. Let’s get to it!”

Want to read more? Click below!

AO3 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

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nikkywrites · 4 years

Text

Day 27: Righteousness

Continues from this prompt.

Warning for apocalypse-type world, dystopia, blood mention, death mention, questionable morals. Typo fixed.

*****

Humanity has been suffering. Crumbling.

The morally corrupt become something unnamable. Changed. It’s an inevitability that is only avoided by death. Or by having the gene.

The reversal gene.

It was discovered six generations ago. Having it means you stay human, stay sane. It was a coveted privilege. An honor.

Until they learned how to use it, how to gift it into others, so they can reap its benefits. Then it became more of a tragic gift. Still an honor, still coveted, but without the life privileges. The scientists learned how to use the blood and convert it into a serum that can be used on others. They discovered the secret after years of looking, by a coincidence, mistake.

It only works if the host dies.

An irony, Jaz thinks, as she walks out of the building that day. In order for them to save humanity from the extinction quick-coming, they had to kill their own. Become the monsters they were trying not to be.

The Changed.

It was a horrific thing. Something that had apparently always been lying dormant in them. Until something (they still didn’t know what, even after all these centuries) made it active.

It was something many didn’t believe (—this isn’t some sci-fi fantasy apocalypse tv bullshit, this is real life—) until literal millions were already lost. Some to the change. More from the outcome of it, the bloodlust of it, the ravaged aftermath.

Then the gene was discovered, a scientist’s discovery after lifetimes of research, looking into the few (so few) who didn’t change. Who didn’t become those monsters. They worked to make it into a serum, something they could give to everyone, to save everyone.

The answer had been found on accident, tested and approved a decade later.

Death was the key. Their savior pale with no blood to save the rest.

Jaz walks by the park, a square of trees that serves to keep morale up, where he will be buried. There’s a clearing in there, marked only by those who have helped save them.

There are only six names. Hugh will be the seventh.

Seven lives lost are not enough for all of them. For the thousands left, less by the day, the decade, the century. Numbers have been plummeting.

Walls are hardly enough to keep the beasts out — tight skin and bare teeth and incurable rage. They didn’t look all that different, really. It was like zombies if they were rotting and slow.

It was an outcome worth a few lost lives.

Killing Hugh — something she hates, as someone who wants to save, but understands the big picture — was worth it. Despite how cold-blooded and clinical his end was. He would save, estimated, about four hundred of them.

Jaz isn’t sure where exactly that line is — how many saved is worth the one lost — but four hundred is well past it, she thinks. She’s on the list, a prize for being the one to harvest the blood.

Few of them had the guts. They used to draw randomly, until one couldn’t handle the guilt of having killed. It was changed after that.

She volunteered. She saw the good it’d do, the opportunity it presented, and she leapt. It would move her up the ladder. Maybe move her in a ring, if she was lucky, closer to the center, where safety rates were higher.

She wasn’t in a bad place, now, but moving in meant she didn’t need to work every day. She could take one off every once in a while, double what she could now, a couple days a month.

Privilege. Honor. Lives saved.

That’s worth a little blood, isn’t it?

#writeblr #creative writing #writing #writblr #prompt fill #nikkywritesstories #nikkywritesprompts #my writing #repost from my old blog #creatober #creatober 2020 #dystopia

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kathyprior4200 · 4 years

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Hazbinphobia: Arrival of Adina

Adina fan art collage

Adina artists: (PLEASE GO SUPPORT)

Vivziepop

Hele-nae https://www.deviantart.com/hele-nae/art/Adina-and-Fitch-594650932

Buhitter https://buhitter.com/search?q=zoophobia

https://buhitter.com/author/AngelOfTheCode

MatrixArt28 https://www.deviantart.com/matrixart28/art/Adina-VivziePop-600498071

http://www.tjhongshengyuan.com/video/av33912053/?spm_id_from=333.788.videocard.5

SLoad666 https://aminoapps.com/c/hazbin_zoophobia/page/blog/a-d-i-n-a-fan-art/eYJp_lgQt3uEb4KZR62402Lp0ZnDe7DgDz6

“Here There Be Dragons”

“In the very beginning, a primordial force (known as Mother V by mortals), existed in the dark antimatter in space. The force caused a major explosion, one that mortals call the Big Bang. After stars and galaxies were formed, planets soon followed. Crafted from that very explosion was an all-powerful being: God. He was everywhere, where there was light, He existed within it. With a flick of His finger, He created the sun, moon, stars and the planets in the Milky Way Galaxy. Then, three main dimensions were formed: Heaven, Earth, and Hell.”

“The first one was Heaven, His residence. It was a marvelous place, with buildings made of gold, sitting on top of fluffy white clouds. The sky was endlessly blue, the environment a paradise. Angels were formed, divided into nine hierarchies: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Powers, Principalities, Dominions, Virtues, Archangels and Angels. Jesus was the son of God who was killed on Earth, then reborn. God soon created His Archangels: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Azrael (black haired Angel of Death), among many others. His favorite one, however, was Lucifer, the Light Bearer. Lucifer was the embodiment of pride and perfection. The Rings of Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, Fixed Stars and Primum Mobile were formed, God existing in the last one. (Also called the Rings of Faith, Hope, Love, Charity, Fortitude, Justice, Temperance, Prudence, and Wisdom). C.H.E.R.U.B. was an organization that saved lives on Earth, traveling to the living world via the Bible. It consisted of sheep cherubs and a cherub boy.”

“The denizens of Heaven were animal-like (like those in Hell), and were ignorant to those suffering in Hell. They took on traits of flowers, harps, doves, dogs, cats, swans and other things considered “holy” or “pleasing” (unlike the spiders, and mythical monsters in Hell). Heaven, too, consisted of councils and Overlords who ruled certain Rings of Heaven, though they were far more just than the ones in Hell. Like in Hell, there were those born in Heaven (the Heaven Born) and do-gooders (the opposite of sinners). Like those born in Hell, the Heaven-Born had more power and a higher status than the do-gooders who had formerly been human. In God’s garden stood the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”

“For many years, all was well.”

“Then one day, God decided to create new beings in His image, who could reproduce and unite with Him after death. They were called humans. The prideful Lucifer did not like the thought of God favoring man over angels. To Lucifer, he and the other angels were superior to humans and mostly immortal…why would God favor man instead?”

“Flooded with pride and anger over God’s strict rules, Lucifer ignited a rebellion against Him. Using his Morning Star sword, Lucifer fought Michael and Gabriel, leading other angels who followed him. God told Lucifer to submit and to end the madness, but the light-bearer refused. Michael defeated Lucifer and soon enough…Lucifer and the angels on his side were banished from Heaven.”

“The second world was Earth, consisting of oceans, land, animals, plants and humans. It was a neutral world between Heaven and Hell. Mortals there could be good or evil or many shades in between. The majority of them were flawed in God’s eyes, so only those worthy enough could go to Heaven. This often translated to straight, white, faithful men getting first pick. Humanity evolved from cavemen to farmers, to townsfolk and city-goers. Wars were fought, inventions were made, and lives were lost and gained. For the most part, humans were concerned with themselves, for better or worse.”

“Lucifer roamed the Earth for a thousand years before being sent to Hell, the fiery third world. There, he became king, while Lilith became queen after her banishment. Together, they created Hell and Pentagram City as a place where fallen angels and sinners could freely express themselves and take whatever risks they wanted. Drugs, murder, rape, and thievery were rampant. Overlords were placed into positions of power, ruling territories and districts. The Rings of Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and Treachery were formed, Satan being trapped in ice in the last one. The Immediate Murder Professionals consisted of imps who would travel to Earth to kill humans upon the requests of their demon clients. Lucifer and Lilith raised their princess daughter, Charlie, who always saw the good in everyone. Charlie would later form the Hazbin Hotel to try and redeem sinners so they could potentially go to Heaven, in order to stop the yearly purges.”

“Parallel to the Hazbin world was the world of Zoophobia. It was a world where humans, animals and anthromorphic beings (bi pedal animals with human traits) coexisted. Bi-pedal animals took refuge in Safe Haven to escape the humans who despised their differences. Safe Haven was one of the districts where Xirxine Labs and Phoenix Academy resided. A human named Cameron was sent to the academy by a mischievous goddess, knowing she had an extreme fear of animals. She eventually got to know the staff and students there, working as a therapist to help the teens. A Heaven and Hell also existed in the Zoophobia world. In Hell, there lived mythical monsters, Lucifer, his fox wife and trouble-making son Damion. Up in Heaven were angels, the same God as before and an angel named Adina.”

“Who is Adina? She is a white, centuries-old angel with glowing teal eyes, long lashes and long white hair. She has large white feathery wings extending from her back. She wears a white dress and robe, bordered by dark teal trim with little white Christian crosses along it. Adina is the mother of dragons in Zoophobia and spiritual consort to God. She was created by God to “save” some people while torturing others. In this way, she performs many tasks: 1. Instilling fear in sinners 2. Encouraging more people to worship the Heavenly Father 3. Gathering information and allies to use against Hell 4. Caring for her sons, whom she created. Adina is also the head of the Exorcists or Exterminators who purge demons in the Hazbin Hell every year.”

“Like Samael and the Exterminators, Adina enjoys torturing demons and sinners, often creating illusions of their worst fears. Her methods and the annual exterminations are ways of keeping demons in line, for them to know their fate and to not rebel against God and Heaven, like Lucifer did. She also has the ability to possesses others and convince them to take her side. Those influenced by her will have teal glowing eyes. (Take Mirage, the killer demon who possessed a brown-haired young woman. She caused havoc until Adina took control of both of their souls, creating a formidable ally.) Chainsaw, a white being with a chainsaw weapon with a cross on it, is Adina’s merciless ally.”

“However, Adina’s closest allies in the fight against sinners are us dragons.”

“Oh? Allow me to introduce myself…”

Surrounded by a teal aura, a humanoid silently walks forward. He is slender with a pointed dark teal tail, black pants and a green vest with white sleeves. He has a white face, a pointed chin and nose and rectangular glasses. His analytical eyes are light green sclera and glowing teal irises, like Adina’s teal eyes. His hair is dark green with two tall furry tufts with light teal tips atop his head.

“I am Fitch, dragon shapeshifter and oldest son of Adina. My large dragon form is in various shades of green: light green stripped underbelly, dark green tail and wings, spikes going along my back. My tail, claws and horns form my head all have teal tips, followed by forest green colorations. My mouth looks beak-like when it’s closed, but my teeth are sharp as ever.”

“I am a demon hunter along with my mother. From a very young age, I have learned to wield a variety of weapons to use against the demons of both Hells. (I’ve only been to the Hazbin world once, and I barely remember). One of my signature weapons is a staff with several spinning blades on it. Many people think I’m heartless, a merciless killing machine, but like Azrael, I’m merely doing my job. My mother enjoys manipulating people and killing demons…it’s just the way she is. My mother also supports Xirxine Labs, the facility where scientists perform experiments on Zoophobia denizens. They may be unethical, but sacrifices must be made in the phases of progress.”

As for me? I feel no remorse nor joy in particular. Demons are like rabid animals wrecking havoc across the realms…someone has to interrogate them and take necessary means.”

“I have three younger brothers.”

Another dragon walks forward, surrounded by dark purple and yellow. He wears thin yellow shoes and long black pants with yellow ends. His curvy black tail is decorated with several dark bows shaped like butterflies. His undershirt is yellow and his tailcoat is the same color as his pants, complete with buttons and a black bow tie under his neck. His face is pale, his eyes have lavender sclera and yellow irises. Finally, his hair is dark black, almost purple, with yellow bangs and tips on his two tufts.

In his dragon form, his skin is thick and purple. He has the black bow tie and buttons along his back, spines down his back, large wings and two sharp horns.

“Marx is a film producer and believed to be a former stage actor. He considers himself a victim of circumstance and is often very grumpy and bad-tempered. Marx and I are no longer in contact, due to disagreeing with certain life choices we have made. He makes me sick. Seriously, he goes around trying to impress others with his so called theater performances instead of doing more important work. Not to mention, joining the mafia, no less! You, know, the shady flirtatious black and yellow Castello, his brother Ribbon who does his dirty work and Salem, part of his black cat army. That mafia is almost as bad as that Italian Hazbin one with Henroin, Angel Dust, Arackniss, and Molly.”

“Safe Haven is supposed to be a secure place where the bi-pedal animals don’t have to worry about paranoid humans hunting them down. But the mafia and the monsters who keep entering the world thanks to that troublesome goddess makes things difficult. At least Lesson, the white cat, helps encourage people to seek the right path and convert to Christianity, like my mother wants. In fact, he works for her and Heaven (Though, his too-wide smile and eagerness gives me the creeps.)”

“Gustav, that German self-centered snake student teacher is Marx’s adopted son. He only likes students with talent; I heard he was very mean to a shy girl on stage.”

Fitch sighs deeply.

“Marx going against our mother’s wishes is seriously going to get him into major trouble. Thanks to Adina, my place in Heaven is already guaranteed. (And yes, “thou shall not kill” is in the Commandments but sometimes killing evil is necessary).”

“Alright, enough about him.”

Another dragon enters. He has a large goofy grin, a green shirt and a pale green face. His eyes are cloudy white, indicating blindness. His hair is jet black, black bangs going sideways and black tufts. In his dragon form, he is slender with light green and dark green colors blending into each other.

“Malcom…I rarely think about, actually. He is a blind dragon teacher at Phoenix Academy. Apparently, he’s friends with another teacher named Perci. His blindness helps heighten his other senses. He’s passionate about learning and helping others. Meh. I consider him a coward, as he’s not willing to kill off any demons. At least he’s not like Marx.”

“And finally…”

The last dragon emerges, surrounded by orange and red. He wears black and white shoes, long red pants, and a black tank top. A spiked collar is around his neck, giving him a gothic look. His claws are black and his skin is white with an array of lines and symbols on it like tattoos. His sclera are orange, his irises red. His hair is a fiery bold orange, as are his two ear tufts. In his dragon form, he is white with black spikes down his back, tattered wings with the black designs, and a tail with sharp orange spikes at the end. His clawed feet are red-orange.

“Hatchet and I see each other often. He is a handful, but admittedly, my closest family. Hatchet can create things with his fire and loves eating rabbits. His acid is acidic, so others would best steer clear. When he’s not eating rabbits or goofing off, he does pyrotechnic tricks, such as twirling flaming batons around. Perhaps he grew attached to me back when I would take care of him when we were younger. He was often the wild one, always getting into mischief. We all live distant lives now. Like Malcom, Hatchet always tries to get along with all of us. Though Malcom and Marx are perhaps closer to each other, like Hatchet is with me. Heh. Strange how two dragons with opposite personalities could get along so well. Adina likes all four of us, but she and I are closest.”

“Yes, that’s about it. Adina and I have been through a lot.”

“I remember those moments when Adina would coax people, like the green haired Iggly student into her wings, getting him to tell her everything. I’ll never get over that terrified look on his face.”

“Or when Adina tortured a white spider demon with his worst fears and said, ‘There is no mercy for the damned.’”

“She once saved this pink bi-pedal animal, embracing her and saying, “Let me save you, my little creature.” My mother always tries to do what is best, even though other people seem to be afraid of her.”

“One other time, I fought and interrogated an uncooperative demon with red eyes. Adina hovered by my side as I raised my teal weapon over his head. She declared, ‘Such is the will of the Lord, so shall it be…’ Later I accidentally killed a delicate white butterfly creature in my hands. I’ve been mocked over my love of butterflies by my brothers, my father, and by many in Zoophobia.”

“Whenever I would get tired or hesitant about my job, my mother would give me a warm smile and say in her soothing voice, “Just remember, it’s for the greater good.” Those words have stayed with me since. It always hurts when Adina says she’s disappointed in me after I fail a task, which is rare, thankfully. But I do what I do for her…it’s my one purpose in this life.”

“I know that those demonic beasts have a safe haven in the Hazbin world like the demons do in Zoophobia’s Hell. Maybe once mother and I find it, we can stop those scum from spreading and planning devious things. Of course, we would need to take out the powerful ones when we can. Everyone knows that angelic blades can instantly kill demons. That’s why I carry mine wherever I go.”

“Adina has summoned all four of us to go on a mission. Not like the interrogation or cleansing missions in Zoophobia Hell. No. This mission was very special. The four of us were to accompany her to the Hazbin Hell world, and find out more information about the princess and her hotel. Some say that the princess wants to unite Heaven and Hell’s denizens of the Hazbin world to create a larger diverse culture full of music, laughter and dancing creatures. Preposterous.”

“God had heard about the program from a distance. Rumor was, if demons were to be redeemed, Heaven would get overcrowded and chaos would ensue. The unwanted guests would disrupt the entire Heavenly system, possibly creating an apocalyptic war as deadly as the one where Lucifer tried to fight God. God only allows those with no flaws or sins to enter Heaven; it’s been that way for centuries. Adina, God, the angels and exorcists all agree that those in Hell are dangerous and should not be allowed into paradise.”

“Hatchet and I remain loyal to mother, though for Hatchet, it’s mostly because he cares for me and doesn’t want to let me down. Marx is grumpy and reluctant as usual. Perhaps he’s upset over a broken relationship or a show or something, not that I care. I briefly saw him drinking at a bar one time. Malcom, blind as he is, looks concerned. He obviously doesn’t want to leave his students and partake in this mission. Alas, Adina is a powerful being, perhaps second to God, so no one dare disobey her if they want to live a pain-free existence. Being dragon-shapeshifters, we can easily fight when needed. And in our bi-pedal forms, we can easily spy and blend in with Hell’s inhabitants.”

“Adina brings out a special device, shaped like a music box. It is golden and pink in color, nearly indestructible. After typing in a code (A24, 921028, VVZPP), the music box slowly opens with a faint whirl, revealing a figure of a fluffy cat. The cat slowly turns around on the stand as cheery music begins to play from the box. The cat stops and from its eyes, flashes a black outline of a portal in the air.”

“The portal lights up in neon pink, revealing elaborate symbols and one spot shaped like a horse named Spindle.”

“There was only one other device in the Hazbin world that could open a portal to Zoophobia, Heaven and perhaps Earth (along with open any door in the Hazbin Hotel), it was another music box with a black winged Sinner’s Key. All that was needed was the key or a grimoire) and a powerful demon or angel who could open portals.”

“A golden Do-Gooder’s Key (The kind used in Heaven) is revealed from an outward moving slot from inside the box. Adina picks it up with her delicate white fingers and places it through a glowing key hole in the portal. After she turns and releases it…”

“Vivienne, Vivienne, Aperiam in porta!”

“Adina chants the phrase to open the glowing portal in front of us. It is the only known gateway to the Hazbin world. The fabric of Zoophobia fades in front of us, revealing a hole to a crimson sky world.”

“We all get ready to go through...set to fulfil our destinies…”

“But let’s go back to the past a bit…”

“The Dragon’s Keep”

Many years ago, my brothers and I were born from special eggs in the Zoophobia world. Adina became lonely over the centuries. Although she had lots of power, it was tiring to travel to different worlds and interrogate denizens all the time. She eventually wanted someone to help her out in her work. Although she was ruthless to demons, she did care deeply for those in Zoophobia and Heaven. She felt like she was part of something bigger; she was doing part of His work, after all.

“Oh what a marvelous place Heaven is,” she sighed to herself. “But the days drag on. I feel my legacy will eventually go unnoticed. If only there was a way I could pass down my values to a new generation.”

Then, it came to her: she wanted children of her own.

But in Heaven, casual sex was seen as one of the many sins not allowed. Plus, angels and demons were creatures that could not reproduce, unlike humans.

Adina soon went to God for advice, bowing respectfully when she saw Him. She stood on a light blue rug that led to a set of marble steps. Golden pillars reached up into the sky, hovering on clouds that appeared on both sides of the open space hall. Two guards dressed in white stood hovering on either side, with flames for faces and six red wings flapping softly from their backs. Above Adina were the fixed stars and galaxies, shining brightly overhead, in contrast to the sky on the sides. Not too far away, angels were darting around large white roses, spreading songs and feelings of joy to other beings born within the petals. She was briefly reminded of her own birth, her name meaning “gentle” and “mild.”

“Your Heavenly Grace,” Adina said, soon standing up, folding her white wings behind her. God appeared as a large golden eye surrounded by golden wheels with eyes covering them and small angel wings spread out from them. The wheels and wings were moving, but God as the eye stared unblinkingly at her. A white marble throne stood behind Him.

“My lovely consort,” he replied, kindness in his voice. “So wonderful to see you again. What is it that you seek?”

“I grow ever lonesome, and feel that what I do isn’t quite enough.”

“My dear, your work is more than enough. I chose you to be the angel of Divine Retribution. You have organized and led countless Exorcists to Hell and back. Not to mention you saved so many souls who almost lost their way. Are you not happy?”

“I truly am, my Lord. It’s just…I want someone who can help carry out my work. One who could work with me, but also be cared for by me. I’d like to have children of my own.”

“Ah,” said God. “A beautiful wish. Alas, you know that angels cannot procreate.”

“I do know. That’s why I came to you for help.”

“Well, there is a way,” He said. “You remember you were created from holy starlight and dragon’s blood, right?”

She nodded.

“You have the ability to give birth to offspring. Dragon shapeshifters, and powerful ones. Here’s what you will do.”

Adina listened intently.

God had sent her on a journey across the world of Zoophobia. She was to retrieve four special items and bring them to a nest in a vast cavern. She remembered the instructions she was given:

“Find the fur of a polecat on a rock during the full moon.

Find a gold frowning theater mask in the camp of rule breakers by the river.

Find the hatchet that lies within a volcano, where fire roars to life.

Find a religious text in the hands of St. Columba where the wind blows high.”

Earth, water, fire and air.

Finding the polecat pelt was easy; she traveled to the forest and there it was, illuminated and clean in the moonlight.

Getting the mask was harder. She had to ward off several shady looking creatures, and a few monsters as well.

After grabbing the ax from the volcano and nearly plunging into lava, she had to use lots of holy water to heal her singed skin and wings.

Finally, she found the leather bound book in the hands of a St. Columba statue, high up in the mountains.

“Head to the largest habitable cavern. Create a large secure nest and place the objects inside.”

At last, she traveled to the cavern, created a large nest of sticks and twigs, and gently placed the objects inside. Her glowing eyes allowed her to see in the dark. Toward the back of the cave was a pile of gold coins and a few precious gems scattered around.

“A decent lair for dragons. They will reside here before being introduced to the rest of the city.”

“Recite this spell to begin the transformation and birthing process.”

Adina hovered her hands over the objects and chanted in Latin. The objects lit up in flaming spheres of light, transforming into speckled oval-shaped white eggs.

The effort of doing the spell made Adina fall unconscious for several days.

Adina stirred awake, her eyes fluttering open. She could hear some movement coming from the eggs. She stood up from the atone floor and let out a soft gasp.

Her children were about to hatch!

She carefully took the nest, flapped her wings forward, and placed it in a secure spot on top of a high cliff near the cave. She made sure that it lay within the sunlight and not too close to the edge.

The eggs then gradually turned different colors. The one from the polecat pelt turned dark green and teal. The one from the mask became yellow and black. The one from the hatchet was red and orange. Finally, the egg from the book was light green and black.

The green and teal egg wobbled first. A dark crack snaked slowly over the surface. More cracks began to appear, creating intricate designs. Ever so carefully, bits of shell fell off from different spots. A beck poked through, and the rest of the shells fell away.

There I was, small with a dark green body, wings and a pointed tail. My new green-teal eyes scanned the area, curiously. It was love at first sight when I saw my mother’s smiling face. Adina stroked my head and back lovingly with her fingers, me letting out a pleased sound. I nudged my face repeatedly into her hand, a musical chuckle coming from Adina.

“You are going to do great things, my little Fitch.”

Around thirty minutes later, two eggs began to stir. The fiery colored one and the yellow-black one. The eggs bonked into each other several times, and chirping could be heard from inside.

“Oh? Who’s coming next?” she asked.

Adina soon had her answer. A part of the yellow and black shell was shoved off, landing onto the nest like a door breaking down. A dark purple and yellow dragon did a little pose before stumbling out of the shell remains. He shook off the embryonic fluids from his scales, showing a grin of small teeth just beginning to form. Moments later, the fiery egg beside him exploded, sending shells and sparks everywhere. I jumped into mother’s hands, terrified, while the purple dragon covered his little head with his arms. A slender white dragon appeared, shaking away bits of shell from his small horns. (This was before he got all his tattoos). His red-orange eyes darted around excitedly, spotting the purple dragon.

“Hatchet!” Adina scolded as the white dragon began to play-wrestle his brother with loud croaks. “Leave Marx alone!”

But little Marx soon joined in the fun, pushing his brother back with his little feet. Hatchet’s small spiked tail smacked Marx in the face and the dragon squeaked in brief pain. Little me jumped from mother’s hands, biting Marx’s tail.

For several minutes, the three of us rough-housed in the nest, testing out our new senses and bodies.

Adina soon grew concerned. “What about the last egg?”

Indeed, the last egg had remained as still as ever. Adina shooed Hatchet away when he tried to knock on the hard light green shell.

“Oh dear,” she sighed. Was it a stillborn? She couldn’t bear that. Minutes became hours. The egg still hadn’t hatched by the morning.

Finally, in the evening, after Adina had almost given up hope, a small chirp was heard. The other dragons peered to get a closer look. Cracks snaked along the egg shell in multiple directions. At long last, holes appeared in the egg, before a closed eye was revealed through one hole. The egg split open and a light green and darker green dragon was revealed. He was slender, with thin see-through wings and a thin pointed face. He sniffed and slowly opened his eyes.

“Malcom,” Adina exclaimed, overjoyed to see her youngest son. Malcom took several shaking steps forward, and bumped right into Marx. Marx growled in protest. Malcom’s eyes were cloudy white.

“He’s blind,” Adina realized.

Malcom’s ears picked up the sounds of bats fluttering from above the cave. He jumped into the air, but fell flat on his back. I helped him up and licked his face.

“You guys will need flying lessons one day,” Adina said.

For several days, Adina brought in meat, game and other foods for us. Hatchet, in particular, loved to eat rabbits. The four of us were much closer back then, than we are now. Eventually, we would learn to breathe fire, fly, talk and hunt for ourselves. We were to go to school and learn to live a more civilized life when we turned one year old, (equates to five human years). Adina had given us brief glimpses of the city and some tidbits.

“Bi-pedal animals wear clothes,” she said. “But full animals don’t have to. Eating humans or other creatures is forbidden.”

“Awww man,” Hatchet groaned.

“Shut up and go chase a rabbit,” Marx muttered to him.

“Rabbit? Where?”

Marx rolled his eyes as Adina continued.

“Do not go outside the Safe Haven border without permission. There are dangerous humans out there with weapons that can kill you.”

“But we’re dragons,” Hatchet mentioned in his child-like bi-pedal form. “We live longer than them and are more powerful. Can’t we just burn down their cities and stuff?”

“Did you not hear what mother just said?” I chided him. “They have weapons that can pierce through dragon scales. Interacting with them would only put the districts in danger and confusion. Idiot, I swear.”

“Swearing’s not very nice,” Malcom added. “I heard one guy say something really bad to another, he was like, ‘oh no you didn’t,’ the other was like, ‘yeah huh, I just did,’ and then…”

“You talk too much,” I deadpanned.

“You didn’t even let me finish.”

“Pay attention, my sons,” Adina said, before continuing her lecture.

A week after we were born, we had gotten the hang of hunting for ourselves. Me and Hatchet, in particular were the better hunters among the group. Hatchet would eat rabbits whenever he could. (To this day, I don’t understand his obsession with them). We steered clear of bears or black horned monsters who could overpower us or swipe us down with their paws.

Adina taught us how to speak, read, write, and, of course, how to fly.

“Feel the direction the wind is blowing,” she said. “Flapping your wings propels you forward but don’t overdo it. Deep breaths and remaining calm are key. Try and land straight on your feet…”

She said this just before Malcom came in for a faulty landing. He bashed into a rock face, tumbling down onto the ground in a heap. Marx tripped on his tail and almost fell, but managed to straighten himself up. Hatchet laughing whenever I fumbled only encouraged me to work harder. Hatchet was doing pretty well, if you didn’t count the time his white wings got torn up a bit from flying through tree branches.

It took a few years for us to fully master our flying and shapeshifting abilities. But I grew fast and learned fast.

I led my brothers when we practiced diving off a cliff. Taking a deep breath, I jumped off the cliff, morphed into my dragon form and spread out my wings gracefully. Adina’s face blended into the clouds; she looked proud. Hatchet was up next.

“Whoo-hoo!” he roared, as he morphed into his white dragon form and took off. A gust of yellow fire shot from his mouth, creating a ring for him to fly through. I smiled a bit and rolled my eyes at him. We weren’t at full size yet, but we weren’t too far off.

“Isn’t this amazing, Fitch?” Hatchet called as he flew beside me. We stared at the canyons and rocky ground below us. “Rawr!” he called, pleased to hear his voice echo through the air.

“Focus, please,” I said. “Mother’s looking for grace and agility, not loudness.”

“Fitchy…am I being too quiet?!”

His loud voice and laughter rang in my ears.

“Sorry, I can’t hear you over your need to shut up,” I retorted.

Hatchet scoffed. “You’re always so…erm…stuffy. I’d say almost as grumpy as Marx back there.”

Marx was pacing back and forth back on the cliff in his bi-pedal form. We all wore white loincloths over our waists that would appear even after we had transformed from our dragon forms. Our chests had thin fur that matched our hair colors.

He appeared to be talking to himself, as if planning some kind of imaginary show.

“Jerry the knight gallops through the woods, only to tremble in fear at the four mighty brothers. Then the camera…one of the objects from the city that Adina told us about…pins up and down as we stomp toward our victim. He runs and runs, the scene going by in a blur…”

“Are you going or what?” Malcom asked.

“Right!” Marx called, raising a fist and standing straight. “Life is but the next grand adventure. We now roll too…”

He spread his wings…

“Marx of Karl, taking off!”

He jumped into the air. Malcom misjudged his next step and plummeted rapidly to the ground with a shocked yelp.

Hatchet and I turned around. “Malcom!” Hatchet cried in fear.

Malcom was briefly scared, but soon got over it. With a new happy look on his face, he spread out his green wings and swirled toward us. “Speak up so I can hear you!” he called out.

“We’re going this way!” I said as I led the group once again.

“What the…” Marx began, looking at Malcom. “You’re not scared.”

“No. Not really.”

“This is only your third time in the air. And you can’t see anything!”

“I can hear, smell and feel where things are. It’s easier on the ground but I’m just happy to be with my dragon bros!”

“Bros?” Marx raised an eyebrow.

“Hey look, I’m not even in my full dragon form! You should totally try it!”

The three of us morphed into our bi-pedal forms, while still retaining our wings. We huddled close to support ourselves.

“W-w-w-whoa this feeling sure is new,” Hatchet muttered, trying not to look down. I, too, was feeling vulnerable, flying for the first time in this form.

“Don’t look down,” I suggested.

But of course, he didn’t listen.

“Oh, no, Fitch, I’m looking down! Yaahhhh!”

“Get off me!” I said, pushing him off when he grabbed my back. He clawed at the air in desperation.

“You’re not drowning, Hatch,” Marx sighed.

Marx muttered some prayers as he grabbed hold of Hatchet to steady him. Hatchet took some deep breaths, settling down.

“Hahahaha!” Malcom laughed in bliss. “You’ll get used to it eventually!”

“How long is eventually?” Hatchet asked.

“How should I know?”

The four of us landed haphazardly into a nearby lake after a wind knocked us slightly off course. Water splashed everywhere after we landed. Hatchet shook off water droplets from his scales and wings.

“Bleh! I hate baths!”

“I’ll say you needed one, Hatch,” Malcom said with a grin.

A deep growl rumbled in Hatchet’s throat. “Wanna see what it’s like to drown? Oh wait, you can’t.”

“At least I don’t have to lay my eyes on your monstrosity of a form.”

“What was that?!”

“Heheheh. You heard me, Hatch.”

“Empty threats and callous fighting, per usual,” Marx remarked, crossing his arms as his brothers landed some kicks and punches in the water. I stood up and narrowed my eyes. I had trouble seeing things off in the distance. Those things Adina called glasses would be very helpful.

“That’s quite enough, both of you!” I commanded, a burst of teal fire escaping my mouth. It was enough to make Hatchet and Malcom pay attention. Good.

“Anyone up for a swim?” Malcom asked.

“Absolutely not,” Marx replied.

“For once, I agree. I say we find ourselves some food and get out of here,” I advised.

“Alright,” Hatchet agreed, separating from Malcom with a grin. “What are we waiting for? Food would be great right now.”

“When are you not hungry?” Marx asked Hatchet.

“Let me think…Never!”

Turning back into our dragon forms, we hunted for food before heading back home. Hatchet had a knack for finding rabbits almost anywhere…and wouldn’t share with us.

“That’s my rabbit!” Hatchet declared.

Marx tried to grab the small dead carcass from his brother’s hands.

“For Viv’s sake!” cried Marx. “You’ve had enough of them already! It’s my turn.”

“Let go!”

“You let go!”

The boys struggled for a bit until Hatchet accidentally ripped off Marx’s loincloth.

Marx turned red and angry in the face as Hatchet stuck out his tongue and laughed.

“You’re such a filthy hothead!” Marx spat as he picked up the cloth and tied it back around his waist.

We found a river of fresh water for us to drink. In our dragon forms, we spit water at each other playfully and had a contest to see who could spit the farthest. It came as a tie between me and Hatchet. Hatchet, being the most athletically inclined, won intense races we had, both on the ground and in the air. A black creature with horns chased after us and nearly devoured poor Malcom, but thankfully, several hard punches from me and the others caused the beast to flee. In celebration, Hatchet juggled fireballs in his hands before catching them all in his mouth.

“That beast will be “dragon” himself to oblivion! Haha! Get it?” Hatchet chuckled at his joke. Malcom giggled while Marx and I groaned in annoyance.

Once we all got back, we turned into our bi-pedal forms once more. Adina said that those would be our default forms most of the time, so she encouraged us to get used to them.

As we reached the mouth of the cave, Hatchet stuffed a severed brown rabbit’s head into his mouth with a greedy look on his face.

“You know that is considered bad manners, don’t you?” I asked, referring back to mother’s lecture. Hatchet wiped off some blood from his pointed face with his arm.

Hatchet scoffed. “Who cares? We aren’t going to the city for…another month, at least.”

“It’ll be here faster than you know it, Hatch. It’d be best if we all prepare ourselves soon.”

“Whatever you say, Fitchy.”

“Stop calling me that. It’s Fitch.”

“Same thing.”

Our steps echoed as we arrived back into the cave at dusk. Hatchet shot a jet of fire up toward hanging bats, who screeched in protest, flapping their wings.

One scorched bat fell down and landed right into Malcom’s mouth as he yawned. After a look of surprise, he happily chewed up the creature and swallowed.

“I guess food can fall from the sky,” he said, licking his lips.

“Jeez Malc, you’re even blinder than the bats,” Marx mentioned.

“Technically, bats use echolocation to track down their food and figure out their surroundings. They aren’t as blind as you think.”

“Hmpth. Know-it all.”

We curled up in our bed nests that were spread out among the cave. They were nests with a few pillows and some blankets inside them. Malcom was the only one who hadn’t outgrown being tucked in. Since mother was busy, Marx came over and helped relax his brother. Malcom’s nest was by a chest of gold coins and some fancy books. They were some of many treasures that Adina magically provided for us. (She had a knack for spoiling us when she wasn’t stern.)

Marx sighed and hopped into his nest by a pile of royal robes nearby. Hatchet slept near, well, a hatchet, along with a few golden goblets and gems. I soon curled up in my nest, the one nearest to some discarded swords, and bladed silver weapons. Apparently, Adina said she would teach me how to use them later on.

“If you want to protect yourself and your brothers,” she had said, “You’ll need to learn how to defend yourself.”

Of course, she hadn’t told me anything about hunting demons until I was older, but I was still eager to learn, nonetheless. The full moon and stars shone through a hole in the cave, a beautiful sight. Before long, the four of us were snoozing peacefully away.

The assassin, the actor, the punk, and the nerd. A very unique dragon family indeed.

#adina #zoophobia #fitch #heaven #fanart #hazbin hotel theory

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mitigatedchaos · 5 years

Text

Von Wokenstein's Monster

(1,300 words, ~5 minutes)

Imagine, for a moment, that in some long-forgotten part of Europe, there exists a town untouched by the calamities of the twentieth century, and that just on the outskirts of this town, commanding a local hilltop from which it towers over the surrounding lands, there is a castle - the Castle Von Wokenstein.

Every morning, the gates of the castle open and unleash a monster, or at least, that's what most people call the shambling and stitched-together creature. Often its words do not match its actions, and its actions do not match its other actions. It might destroy the wall of a grain silo while shouting that access to food must be free for all, leading the grain to be destroyed by weather or vermin, or place posters calling for the creation of more cats in the town and then subsequently place posters calling to cast all the town's cats over the walls. On the other hand, it might throw a cruel noble from his horse and into the freezing river below just as his tyranny had become too much to bear. Each night, the monster returns to the Castle, and each morning it emerges different from how it was the day before.

For the townies, the actual intentions or mental state of who created the monster are unknown, and it seems, unknowable. They would choose to hastily construct theories based on the monster's actions and rhetoric - perhaps the reason the monster calls for breeding more cats and also to throw the cats over the walls is to populate the world with cats? Or alternatively, perhaps the monster's creator simply hates cats so much that he wishes for as many of them as possible to suffer. There is a great deal of speculation about Professor Von Wokenstein, the man thought to be responsible for the creature's creation. (Some even believe the creature creates itself.)

Nonetheless, no matter the intent of the alleged Professor, the town experiences the effects of the monster as a single entity. At one point, after the monster had taken to flipping every automobile in the town limits, a group of the town's citizens finally take up their torches and pitchforks and set out to storm the castle...

...only to find, once they pass the gates, that there is no Professor Von Wokenstein. Chaos and feuding reign in a mad scientist family of conflicting intentions, goals, and abilities, each working on different parts of the monster either for ideological or personal reasons, or scheming to gain advantage over the others. Some are so deep in the basement of the Castle that they are completely unaware of the other Wokensteins' existence. Despite this, systems built into the Castle itself ensure that each morning, what there is of the Monster is delivered to the gates to be released to/on the public - the Monster of Castle Von Wokenstein...

---

There are two parts to the theory of Von Wokenstein's Monster.

1. The Body of Von Wokenstein's Monster

Policy is not experienced in isolation from other policy made by the ruling coalition. It's experienced all at once. Different policies combined together have different effects than the same policies in isolation.

Let us suppose we have a city, and in this city different members of the ruling coalition favor two policies, which they themselves see as relatively unrelated. Policy A is rent control in order to limit the expenses of people in the city (presumably on the grounds the landlords hold too much leverage to make the negotiations fair). Policy B is that more people should come to live in the city. (This might be "to make it more diverse" or "because there is a labor shortage," or simply because some ethnic group want more of their own in the city.)

If the city's population is held constant, then rents collected under rent control might be enough to maintain the existing housing stock and replace that housing stock once it reaches the end of its effective lifespan. If the city's population is increasing, then developers might be unable to profit from building more housing stock (as either they have inadequate information about the true rental prices, or they won't be able to charge rents high enough to justify the increased costs of building higher, or the rate of return will not be adequate compared to other investments - there are many possible reasons). With the number of housing units not increasing with the population, people will illegally exceed building occupancy limits, or else end up forced to live on the street, or be forced to leave the city.

If the city's rents are not held constant, then rents will rise as immigrants move to the city and bid them up. This provides a price signal to developers who can build new housing in order to take advantage of the increased revenue, which will fund the construction, driving rents back down. If the number of housing units do not increase, then immigrants to the city will end up living in overcrowded housing, shanty towns, or out on the street, or have to leave the city.

Neither advocates of policy A or policy B intend to increase homelessness. In fact, many policy A advocates will be doing so expressly out of intent to prevent homelessness. And in isolation, neither policy necessarily leads to homelessness. Combined, however, there's a significant risk that they will.

While an accusation of "distributed hypocrisy" might seem absurd against an individual advocate of either policy A or policy B, the effect is materially experienced together as one body of policy (e.g. the city experiences a homelessness crisis), and it is legitimate to argue against and oppose it on that basis.

This also includes intentions to pass policy, insomuch as it is in coalition with other policy.

2. The Brain of Von Wokenstein's Monster

Because the body of policy is experienced together as one, either in terms of hearing it proposed or in terms of it becoming the law, and because from the inside the mechanics by which an ideology functions just feel like truths and so ideologues do not have sound access to rival ideologues' mind-states, people will attempt to construct some imagined ideological basis that unifies the wildly disparate policies. This can lead to some pretty dark places.

For policies A & B, someone trying to find a unified motive for both A and B might conclude...

The city is deliberately trying to make people homeless.

The city values immigrants more than it values native residents, since the constant supply of housing means that for immigrants to successfully move in, residents must leave.

The city values residents more than it values immigrants, and is intending to, through preventing immigrants from having safe housing situations, make them easier to exploit as cheap and expendable labor.

When, of course, it could simply be the result of an electoral trade "needed" in order to form a ruling coalition that gets to 51% of the vote, or because the advocates of each policy don't talk to each other, or because someone advocating both policies just hasn't thought the effects through very much.

Regarding individual advocates - there was some discussion of whether "Von Wokenstein's Monster" applies to individuals, or (implicitly) if it would apply to groups seeking coherent policy, or only if it applies to insufficiently-coordinated groups. Well, in practical terms political advocates tend to not-think-through the combined effects of policy quite regularly! The two problems with applying a "Weak Wokenstein's Brain" to individual simultaneous A&B advocates are that 1), the term "Wokenstein's Monster" might end up just becoming a generic boo word, with Twitter bluechecks being referred to as Wokensteins, and 2) ideology is necessarily less complex than reality, and therefore all ideology is at risk of internal contradiction.

If someone hasn't thought through the implications of holding (generic) policies A & B at the same time sufficiently well, for the sake of epistemic hygeine, just address that directly and don't call them "Professor Wokenstein."

After all, there are potential [N]-stein's Monsters for each ideology or ruling coalition.

#longpost #long post #textwall #politics #flagpost

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namjoonchronicles · 6 years

Text

homebound | yoongi

Pairing: yoongi x reader Genre: fluff, domestic, marriage au Word count: 4k

Author’s note: i just need someone to catch me when i fall. To pick the things i accidentally left behind, hold my hand and tell me that i’m safe.

There’s something wrong with the snare file Hoseok gave.

Yoongi pursed his lips, staring at the screen of flattened audios full of soundwaves. His face shone by the light from the computer while the rest of the room is pitch black. Then, his passcode-only-accessible door beeped a certain combination and unlocked.

The light is flipped on and Yoongi didn’t even blink, resuming to type, like nothing happen. You walked in, with an exasperated sigh to say, “Can you please please please watch the fried chicken so it won’t burn, I need to poop.”

“Sure wokey...” Yoongi glanced to his screen and typing while pushing his chair back, ready to leave. His left foot was already extended out but his arm hadn’t left the keyboard, frantically punching a few button.

You, on the other hand, were running down the hallway to your main bedroom bathroom, already discarding your shorts and sped through the door.

Yoongi swings his feet out his home studio and shut the door with a mechanical click. The whole house smells like fried chicken. He poked the chicken with the tongs and decided that it wasn’t cooked yet. In a relaxed manner, he glides his eyes to the fridge and squinted over a very oddly suspicious writing that wasn’t his or hers. He pinched this paper and took a closer look.

Of course he didn’t recognise his own writing. He was drunk when he wrote it. On cough medicine.

“Kitchen sink needs fixing, too little flow of water.”

Yoongi went over to check if the allegations were true. It was.

Despite his drunken state, he remembered everything he needed to do as a husband. He had a terrible cough that day. Days, actually. Phlegm start building up and he expelled yellow greenish mucus, lost his voice for a few days, and came back with a groggy one. You told Namjoon he couldn’t be at work, so he stayed at home, where he’s safe. And fed.

Peeking at the chicken that’s happily frying in the pot, he uses the tongs to lift them from the hot oil and to the plate.It was your turn making lunch today, Yoongi will prepare dinner. Thinking that you’d be out in a short while, he placed another batch of chicken into the oil and it sizzled, deliciously.

“Such a heavenly smell…” you said in a sing-song voice. He felt your hand running across the span of his shoulders and your body weight on his when you leaned towards him. “Praising me won’t make me take over the fried chicken, wifey,” he scrunched his face at you and you pouted at him. “I hope you get eaten by the computers one day, and I’ll get all your insurance,” you leaned your back to the kitchen counter watching your husband squinting his eyes at each piece of chicken drumstick he placed inside the oil. “That would take awhile since scientists have not made it possible for a human to travel in micro sizes yet,” he mutters with a certain drawl.

You crossed your arm at him and he gives you a brief but frightened, side glance. He stiffens and placed the tongs on the side. Fidgeting, he turned to look away from you and wiped his nose, sniffling. The air changed, so you must have been angry.

“Move,” you pushed him from your spot, “Go to your studio.”

Yoongi acted like a slime, switching place with you, hugging you from behind and leaned his 5am stubble-covered chin on your shoulder,rocking his hip side to side. “...I’m going to the store in a bit, do you want anything?” he raspily whispered in your ear. You put on your best bitch face and continued cooking without responding to his question. It’s what he deserves for answering so snarkily. Yoongi had always been so tactless in his words, you often wondered where he got it from.

It didn’t take a lot for him to notice the blossoming reddish blue splotch of skin raised a bit higher than the others on your right knuckle. He frowns in distaste because obviously, you have hurt yourself when he’s not around. “What’s that?” He slides his chin off your shoulder and moved his hand down your forearm to your wrist to get a closer, accusing look. He tips his eyes at you and you took your hand to scratch your nose, and put them away from sight. “The first batch of fried chicken...was merciless,” you added a nervous chuckle, not wanting him to see you as a bad cook with little experience. There was excess liquid on the first batch, and it hid behind a coat of bread. You, who thought little of it thought that it would be safe to put them in the hot oil. It was an accident. It could have happened to anybody.

“Which one,” Yoongi grumbled. You blinked and gave him a blank expression. What on earth is he talking about.

“Which one of these fried chicken decided that it was okay to splatter hot oil on my wife’s wrist?” he narrowed his eyes to the plate of chicken.

You don’t know how but you managed to put on a straight face and then, a puzzled face while pointing to the one accused, without sputtering laughter. When you’d been with someone long enough, their jokes become something you just can’t tolerate, sober. Yoongi proceeds to grab the drumstick and rips its flesh to an act fit to be called, ‘angry-eating’. “I’m gonna slaughter you,” Yoongi thought.

“I think I pointed to the wrong one, they all look the same after frying,” you sounded so nonchalant, but the sound of chewing stop from Yoongi’s side. Then he glided his eyes to the rest of the chicken, muttering, “At least they know what happens if you hurt Min Yoongi’s wife.”

“Alright-alright, you’re going to fight the fried chicken for a tiny blister in place for your wife? Cute, but you gotta go to the store and get me some glass noodles. I saw one good recipe in the internet and wanted to try it out,” Hands on each of his shoulders, you whirl him around until you could smack his bum to usher him out the house. He struts outside with a cheeky smile and dug his hand into the pocket of his hoodie, hiding his head under the hood. He didn’t like people much, but he’d do anything to make your day easier. If the wifey wants glass noodles, then she’ll get them glass noodles. He left for something else too.

As he trudges his way there, he saw a familiar face. In the hallways stretching to the lobby where the post box for each residence were. She slips a letter inside.

He didn’t act so rashly and greeted her, because it seemed like she was there uninvited. If you knew she was here, you wouldn’t let her leave without a cup of coffee. Which led to Yoongi to wonder, why have you stopped speaking about her. Her, what was her name, Yoongi pondered. The one with a beauty mark on the side of her lips. Gemini. You always called your friends by their horoscope, instead of their real names. You used to talk about her a lot but somewhere in the span of four to five months, perhaps more, Yoongi couldn’t recall, you suddenly stopped. Yoongi made a mental note to take the letter from the box later when he returns. He wasn’t planning for a long stop at the store and promised to return less than half an hour.

“...that was odd,” he commented when he saw Gemini leaving without stalling any second. Did something happen between the two that he didn’t know about? That must have been it, then. You rarely spoke to him about your days because he was often so preoccupied with his work, so you both were drifting away emotionally, if not physically. That saddens him. Why did he need a reminder every now and then that he is married and is taking care of someone else’s soul apart from his own. He sighed to himself and resumed his route back to the store where he was supposed to be, ten minutes ago.

Maybe its due time that you get yourself a good spa trip.

Your neck and shoulders were suffering from constant stress, you were losing valuable sleep because your legs were having cramps in the middle of the night--and you bet, Yoongi didn’t know any of it. What did you expect? Him to read your mind, and expect him to know what you want without speaking, and communicating, like humans do? This is why you were his headache. You gave yourself a half shake of your head and a lingering smile on your lips, thinking of how ridiculous the concept of love is, in your head. Let’s be honest, Yoongi was your dream husband and your parent’s nightmare. You had emphasized this many times that you would not marry someone you didn’t feel connected with. Your mother called you stubborn, your father couldn’t look at you. But you were firm, and determined that this man is for you and like it or not, Yoongi will be your husband or there will be no discussions of marriage, at all. It frightened them. It was a threat to their neck, and the shame they had to bring themselves for having a child who hadn’t been married at an age where she should. And you had no problem saying yes to any rumor that went around, because making them proud was no longer your goal in life.

The horror of you declaring false affirmations towards rumors like, being a lesbian, or sponsoring younger men, flings for hobby--terrifies them, so they had to say yes to Yoongi. And Yoongi, the gullible one? Thought he was in it because everything was a okay and this was a typical marriage. It was anything but typical.

In the expanse of your acquaintance, Yoongi had gone through a lot of shit. Your step family for example, had come to ram your head to the wall more than once. Put you in false debt, get you running from loan sharks, you were in a mess. Yoongi, being as ever resourceful, offered help wherever he could. Be it lawyers, security guards, relocation, you name it, he had it taken care of. Until one point in life, he said, it would probably be easier if you married him, so you did. You never looked back since then. It was never a crossroad with Yoongi, you knew what you wanted, who you wanted and how you wanted it.

Once your mother invited him home to a family full of distant relatives, and you remembered he was all tensed up because it was a reunion of a different kind. Why? Because unlike his seemingly ordinary family, your father past job made him able to befriend ex convicts and your grandmother from your mother’s side has ties to the town’s gangster. Your parents were the exact opposites to each other. The literal union of black and white town. You never really bothered on how they met despite being on different side of the law, but it happened, and you came to the world with your stubborn head. You wondered which side that was from.

Yoongi squeezed himself in between your very buff and tall, tattooed-all-over male cousins. Their hair was half shaved to show the tip of a dragon tattoo behind their ear. He looked so out of place. You had to save him because the boys were taunting on him. He puffed his cheeks and followed you to the kitchen. He thirstily gulped over a glass of water, emptying it in one go, his chest heaving up and down. “I like the one in white suit,” he’d suddenly say, “he seems nice…” You glanced over to the person he was referring to and chuckled through your nose. “Really?”

He nodded, innocently. “He was accused of burying four bodies in a mass grave behind his summer house, Yoongi. He’s not nice…” you swirled the remaining liquid in the glass he used and pour yourself another glass of water. “Oh,” he blinks.

“What about that one? He looks pretty young…” Yoongi puckered his lips to the guy in simple t-shirt, holding a bottle of soda. “Armed robbery. At 16,” you smacked your lips together.

Good times, good times. You took the pot away from the stove and set a plate of fried chicken on the dining table. The clock showed 2.05 pm. That store trip was taking him awhile, you thought to yourself. Maybe you could use a shower. The fabric of your shirt had taken up all the smell from the frying. Or maybe wash your hair. Steam escape the rice cooker as it cooks rice and you waddled in a hurry down the hallway again, taking off your shirt midway.

Yoongi shoved the new set of steel pipe into the basket. Some snacks and glass noodles. He stopped around the pharmacy and staggered for awhile.

Seems like a lot of work for something so trivial, doesn’t it? Just get it and go, his brain barked, but his heart wanted to take some time and make careful decisions so his wife gets only the best. He grabs one box and prayed that it was indeed the best because his intuition says so.

Maybe she’d like some juice, even though we have some at home. Carrot juice? Honeydew? Hmm. He purses his lips and squinted his eyes at all the brands there. Then he felt it.

He felt a pair of eyes on him. He fidgets nervously. It seemed that he had caught someone’s attention. A female. Young. Wearing a J’adore perfume from Dior. That whiff of an intoxicating scent bothered Yoongi and he struggles to decide which one he wanted to take home. Her hair was down, and she had these expensive headphones sitting on her shoulders, her protruding clavicle was so distracting from the reflections in the mirror. And it seemed like she knew she was gathering Yoongi’s subtle attention. She suddenly stumbles closer to him and Yoongi stepped away, with a stagger. A fake fall, Yoongi knows this all too well.

He used the same tactics before. With you.

She, elegantly tucked her hair behind the shell of her multiple pierced ear, with her freshly manicured fingers. Tight leathers, not sneakers but black Nikes on black crop top, in this weather? Yoongi squawked in his head. He reached for one carton of carrot juice and so did she. The nerve of this girl. Her flirting game was off the chart. Yoongi excused himself, his brain running 1000 terabytes in one second, wondering how to break this girl’s heart. This is not his first time being hit on. You were right, his face is a problem. Yoongi switches sides with this determined girl, trying to get another row of the same brand and there she goes, obstructing Yoongi’s right hand path.

This can’t happen. Yoongi remained calm as she bowed and tried to have a conversation about how sorry she isn’t. All the games had been overplayed.

He reaches the carton now with a left hand where his wedding ring shimmers, blinding the girl’s heavily mascara and eyeliner--covered eyes. “Excuse me,” Yoongi spoked through gritty voice and a fake smile, pushing her away with his basket. I’m already taken.

He waddles to the self-service payment counter, as quick as he can and checked himself out with a swipe of his card. The girl stares at his back, feeling bad that someone out there had that fine piece of man as a husband. Better luck next time.

Humming to Trey Songz Already Taken, dancing in your casual tees and pastel blue short, your hair in a towel, you’re washing the coffee jug to make a new one for Yoongi later at night when he’s working. So he that he’d always have one cup when he required them even after you’d fallen asleep. His well being is your utmost priority. The main door swung open to him carrying several bags of items. You quickly set your hands away from the mug and aided him with one or two but he goes sputtering, “This one is heavy, take that one. That one is lighter.” He spoils you to no end.

“Pipes? What for?” You enquired while unbagging the glass noodles and snacks, already smiling to yourself that he bought your favourite snack even when you didn’t ask him to. Can he stop impressing you already? You’re getting tired of falling more and more in love with his romantic ass.

“I’ll worry about that, oh, babe…” his head jerks up as if he remembered something important, “I saw Gemini downstairs, she slipped this into the letterbox without stopping to say hi, I watched her leave.” You inched closer to his side, and took the envelope without much protest. “You met someone? You smell like a girl’s perfume,” you sniffed him out briefly before ripping the tip of the envelope, but stopped and deciding against it. “Some irrelevant tipsy girl decided to stumble next to me…” and you knew from his tone that he’s not trying to butter up the incident, because he knows that he will have no gain from it. “Well enough about that perfume, what happened with Gemini? Or more accurately, between you and Gemini…” Yoongi enquired.

“Nothing important,” you snapped, moving away from him but Yoongi let out a scoff and a smile as he slid his hand down your arm and grappled your wrist in a loose grip, stopping you from going any further. “It’s a long story and it will bore you,” the way you swiveled away from his grasp made him feel uneasy. And he stood still while you pulled the chair out the table so you could have finally have your lunch. “You took a while buying three items,” you wiggled your butt onto the chair and Yoongi joined after washing his hands underneath the faucet. “I got you juice too,” he swirls his spoon around his soup and took a careful, sip because it was still steaming. “...honey,” he said in a warning tone, because he knew you so well to know that you were avoiding something.

“Gemini said something that hurt my feelings, a year ago, and I’d been sitting on it,” you finally let out an exhale, as if you’ve been keeping the feeling to yourself for awhile. “She was speaking to this other friend I had a beef with and I felt like trash,” you hummed. Yoongi peeked at you through his bangs and glasses, chewing the meat slowly, as he listened. He was finally given the change to swim inside the thoughts of his wife and it was a rarely given chance. You were as secretive as he was. But you two loved each other immensely.

“I feel like I still couldn’t forgive her for what she did to me in college.”

Gemini and you were struggling to find a better house to rent for your second semester in that college. Having to pay rent and find money for deposits, you were pretty low on cash, but your parents never knew that because you don’t tell them things.

“Much like how you’re doing to me now,” Yoongi commented.

Now Gemini didn’t help you pay the deposits. And the room was for two, logically she has her part to pay. But she didn’t offer any financial aid, because she saw how financially able you are, with your car and your parent’s job. Aside from the deposit, the rent, and buying food, you also had to pay for gas of the car you took to college that Gemini also took a ride on. You didn’t want to sound petty and ask for gas money, but it was common sense--you thought. Gemini however, clearly came from family that had no sense. Because a little before the second semester study week began, she said she’s moving out.

“She didn’t tell me when she decided to move out, and was like,” you cleared your throat to mimic her high-pitched voice, “I’m moving out tomorrow, my dad will fetch me.”

And what does that bring you? A double rent for the next month, which is due on the same date she’s moving out that she won’t be paying, handling deposits for two people, and running low on cash for gas until the next scholarship fee comes.

“So you had to pay a two person fee for a room? Alone? While she flees home with her dad without spending money on rent? The nerve she had…” Yoongi mutters towards the end. “She also comes back to college with my car, because her father thinks my rented house was closer than the college…” you took one spoonful of food and think lightly of it. “Wow,” Yoongi drawled.

“Let me guess, she didn’t offer money for gas too? Despite you both were students, and you had to pay rent, and pay food and take her home when it’s raining?” Yoongi listed. You nodded, while ripping the kimchi apart with your chopstick, chewing. “How convenient it was for her dad huh… his daughter gets a free ride, doesn’t pay deposit or gas money, leeching off of you?” Yoongi was angrier than you were.

Fast forward another three years, Gemini said she wanted to stay over at your parents because you live in a city with more jobs than her town had. Even after you said that it was your parent’s house and not yours. She shouldn’t have taken the offer no matter what. It was manners and again, common sense.

“But she stayed about a month,” you mumbled. “Without paying rent I guess?” Yoongi shot.

Yoongi stares to you, his wife, thinking how easily you got played by people who only took advantage of you. Just because you look the part. Rich parents, a car and an able body to lean on. It disgusts him.

“She would have stayed longer if I didn’t tell her my mom was furious. My mom didn’t like her because she knew what happened to me during college,” you nodded to yourself. When she left you alone to pay rent and happily live and never really apologized for it. Hoping that the thing will go away in time. “She also broke my toilet cover and my mom’s mug when she was there… during that time, you were still doing that music scraps and sending it over to me to see how I think…” you reminisce. At least there were a few pleasing moments back then.

There was this one time, when you and Gemini weren’t completely speaking to one another, that she came to your house and gave you a pudding and post-it note. You should have felt something, but all you feel was hate. You couldn’t even talk yourself out of it. You left the pudding she made and it went bad. The thing is you don’t even eat pudding. You would have eaten if she didn’t force you to return the typical plastic container it came in. “She wrote, this container isn’t mine, so please return it a.s.a.p.”

“And what did you reply? How?” “I texted her and said, you can get the same plastic container at any store. I’m sorry I can’t return them to you,” you snapped.

She shouldn’t have given it if she wanted you to leave the house and hand them to her. You were under a depressive episode and to do that was rude. Countless times you reminded her that you didn’t want to be disturbed when you’re under such episodes, and after five years of friendship, she still didn’t understand and you stopped wanting to make her understand. You were happier alone. That’s what you decided. Having friends only bring me to my demise, and I’m tired.

Finding out the fact that she had been speaking to your other friend behind your back and proudly tell you about it, was very revolting and unacceptable. No matter what. You didn’t speak behind them about anything. And that’s another story you didn’t want to uncover.

“At the end, I felt like I wasn’t a good friend. I kept hurting, that’s what they told me.And I feel like, if they’re not leaving this ship then I will. They will leave one day, why not now, right?” You shrugged your shoulders and Yoongi casted his eyes downward to your plate. No more conversation about Gemini, but you did open the envelope she gave. It was her engagement party. Yoongi could see it in your eyes that you don’t want to go.

He rubs medicated oil on your feet and massaged your ankle, carefully. The pianist’s nimble fingers working on your nerves felt heavenly, but the contents of the letter didn’t allow you to enjoy it fully, so you set them on the side table and rolled your head back on the headboard, sighing out loud.

“I’m going to Hokkaido on that date, do you want to come with me?” he pinches the nose of your ankle, and dragged them down, sensually and carefully, avoiding your gaze when he asked and finally lifting his face when you were silent.

You carded your fingers through your hair and cocked your head to one side at him, smiling. “We should get separate rooms so you can actually do your work…” you caught him sheepishly smiling at the memories of the last time he took you with him to work.

“I will do no such thing, what will my manager say…” Yoongi rode both palms up your knee and thighs, kneading your flesh with utmost care, leaning his lips down to your centre and lands a kiss against your tummy.

“You were supposed to work right now.” “This is work.” A husband’s duty and Yoongi is a very dedicated family-man.

Yoongi was sitting up next to your sleeping body, and he carefully reaches over the box of burn ointment to put on your blossoming burn wound, and he does it so gently that you barely stirred. He rubs his thumb over the mound so softly, it felt like a fleeting touch, if anything. Yoongi presses a lingering kiss on the side of your temple and brushed his lips against your skin to whisper, “You’re safe with me.” Always.

If there’s any lesson to learn from the story you told, it’s to never piss you off, or be risked losing shelter. Yoongi will forever be happily homebound, as long as he behaves.

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baekhyuns-abs · 6 years

Text

His human, his protector [9]

(gif not mine credit to the maker)

Two updates in a day? You betcha.

Mentions of physical abuse and dark themes

Don’t be shy, I don’t bite

Previous chapters

Masterlist

“I’m Daniel.”

She didn’t care.

The male nurse didn’t care for her weeks ago until she opened her mouth during the induction with subject 10 - now called the self healer. She hoped he wouldn’t bother her again after her cold and abrupt rejection of his coffee date but as she slipped on her lab coat she realised she was mistaken.

She looked at him, his eyes hopeful but she remembered the look of evil in them when she had witnessed him battering subject 10 - the very subject she had saved - till the point he was close to being too fatigued to heal himself.

She forced a smile through the disgust and pushed aside her fear of what she had witnessed in Richard Francis’ ‘office’ days ago.

“Nice to meet you.” She lied.

She clipped her level 4 identification to her lapel and headed out of the locker room hastily.

She felt tired, drained. Her emotions were jaded and her body felt heavy, no amount of coffee could make her feel energised and ready to work. She had done her first set of night shifts, all of which were boring, triesome and completely uneventful since she had retrieved the stick from Wesley’s locker. She was back on her days again, her body accumulating to the change slowly.

It was hard to come to work, it was hard to continue acting unphased by everything knowing what she knew. There was a breeding drug, there was sexual abuse as well as physical and it depressed her, the fact that she was aware of these new happenings yet was just has helpless as she was before to do much about them.

Richard had become a ghost; she hadn’t heard off him since she had left that apartment building. She was naive enough to hope that the so-called infiltration date was sooner rather than later. Every new blood sample, every tick of the clocks got tedious and she slowly began to lose hope. She feared the worst, that Richard was a test that she had failed and she was soon to be murdered or that he had been killed himself.

She swiped her card, heading down the first corridor of unfortunate subjects, their numbers printed on the doors so primitively - 04... 94…

Security details stood obediently at the doors, their expressions almost dead. She avoided looking at them as she carried on through to her floor. She placed her card against the reader as she came to her restricted access patients, 21 and 99.

As the corridor doors clicked open she made a move to step inside when a chillingly familiar voice caught her attention.

“Good morning, nurse.” Doctor Lendal called behind her and she could have cried.

She felt gripped by fear all of a sudden, her mind spinning. What if he knows? What if he knows?! She was repulsed by her doctor and the things he did and enjoyed doing to the subjects but because of that fact, she was completely frightened of him. Along with her traitorous actions against Nova and her loyalty to another cause she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to do what it took to make her disappear.

“I was hoping to catch you.”

She turned around and grimaced as he sported his surgical coat. That could only mean one thing - theater. She didn’t know still what they did during surgeries on the subjects but the bloody rags and organs that followed the procedures.

“The tests on experiment 10 have been reviewed by the board and they are impressed with the findings and your level 6 clearance has been granted.”

She didn’t know how to be happy about that news. She was moving up in the company and in any other environment it would be amazing, goal achieving but this was Nova, the higher up you go the more blood there is on your hands. She forced a smile to her doctor, hoping the look in her eyes matched his of greed and corruption.

“Thank you.” She gusted with a sugar coated voice as she inwardly cringed.

“They should have your new ID card at the registration desk by the end of the day, but you still have access to level 6 facilities and data with your current one.”

~~~

She headed downstairs, heart feeling heavier the more underground she got. She was the only nurse under Lendal that now had access to subject 88 - the teleporter. She hated to fear him, but she did, she couldn’t help it. The look in his eyes was inhuman, the creature underneath his skin extremely close to the surface.

Nova did that to him, we did that to him.

She stepped inside after showing her ID card to the extensive security team in the vault. They searched her name and upon seeing that she was a newly designated level 6 nurse she was let inside the cell accompanied by 3 guards. She couldn’t help but wonder why. If he was tame to women she shouldn’t need armed officers but she guiltily felt comforted by their presence as she met the penetrative dark gaze of subject 88

“Hi…” She spoke softly, her heart beating quickly. “I just need to do check ups…”

The plump lips of 88 stretched into a smirk and he wordlessly stood from his crouch and it was the tamest he had been since his last check up.

“C-can you come to the line?” The edge of the kill zone.

“He can’t understand you, you know.” One of the guard’s voice was amused, his tone patronising.

She didn’t spare him a glance as she kept her eyes focused on the deadly human experiment in the furthest corner from her.

“It won’t hurt…” She tried to convey her sympathy with her eyes, her apologies and sadness for him. “Just come to the line.”

88 smiled even more at her, his expression mad and it made her red. He stood straight, turning completely to her and she held her breath.

“Are you going to say please?”

The rustle of shocked security details behind her sounded as they fidgetted where they stood, outstanded and suddenly horrified at the fact that 88 had just spoken. His voice was light yet deep, unused and rusty and she exhaled. He had never spoken, no one knew that he could, his vocal cords hadn’t been altered when he was first taken in but he never used his voice.

Shocked but pleasantly so she nodded. “Please come to the line.”

His skin didn’t flash, didn’t disappear every few seconds as he moved towards her. He was stable as he approached with such ease it negated how he was chained up so heavily by every limb.

“I just need a blood sample.”

She could see by the way he walked leisurely to the line as instructed that there wasn’t a need for a physical. She couldn’t believe it, the ‘monster’ that everyone talked about upstairs with such malice and disdain held his arm out obediently as he stood still, gift stable as she took his dark blood. A closer look at him now she could see the traces of humanity in his face, the tanned skin that shouldn’t have developed from a life indoors, and his flickering eyes - from red to brown as if flickering from one creature to another.

But all the while he was still and she regretted being afraid of him in the first place.

88 looked menacing she couldn’t deny that but at the same time she couldn’t see him as a monster. He looked the furthest away from human but knowing that that was a product of Nova’s own making - it made her more sorry than scared.

“Okay.” She drew back her needle and just like he had been instructed to many times he placed his finger where the needle once was and applied pressure.

She didn’t realise how nervous she was until she applied the protective cap over the needle, her fingers shaking. 88’s eyes narrowed as they zoned in on her trembling hands and his iris’s bled back into red. They looked back at her face, the animalistic stare she had seen once, boring into her again. Sorrow and agony filled her every pore, as if she was feeling everything he felt.

She scurried back from the line her legs feeling weak as his lips laxed into a straight line and his skin began to flash. She sidestepped security and out of the cell without a look back. Her heart hammering and her lungs claimed with fear.

~~~

“This is scan 45…”

The MRI technician spoke monotonously as he pressed the right buttons to activate the massive machine behind the glass. She held her breath as she watched slowly as subject 99 began to slide into the large body scanner. A neurologist stood in front of her, blocking her view of the brain scan as it began to formulate on the screen. But she wasn’t focused on that, more on the male on the metal slab.

Subject 99 had been hauled from his cell, his protests evident from the state of the security guards as he entered the room for his scan. He was shoved on his back on the scanner, his legs and arms being bound down, his forehead too with a leather strap around his head - keeping him still.

They scanned him regularly, seeing a part of his brain that lit up when provoked, telling them all that he should have a gift, yet they never saw a glimpse of it. There was nothing that moved, nothing that shook or changed in the room as they tried to poke and prod him till he was bleeding - he refused to give in, show the doctors what he had shown her in the showers…

She had made a promise to not tell anyone that she had seen the ice he had made, that his gift was there and he could use it. Telling the doctors and technicians that he had a gift would relieve him of his pain and suffering - save his life as she knew Lendal wanted him dead. But he had chosen to live in secrecy and pain and although she wanted it to stop, she prayed every day that Richard Francis would do what he promised and save them both.

“His brain activity has changed… Said the scientist.”

She looked at him, her interest peaking and her fingers and toes crossing, hoping it wasn’t for the bad.

“The patterns suggest depression.” He muttered, gesturing to the brain on the screen. “Interesting…”

Her heart sank and she itched to be on the other side of the glass, to hold him; to free him.

“How can he be depressed?” Lendal scoffed, his voice void of anything but humour.

Her thoughts turned putrid as she looked at the doctor, hatred filling her.

“We could try electroshock therapy…” The neurologist said in response. “It’s proven to be very effective on other experiments.”

Horrified she looked back to him. That’s illegal; but so was everything else that took place in the building. She had read about shock therapy, it was old, outdated and ruled out by every medical professional in the western world as nothing but harmful and completely cruel. It sickeningly made sense that the medical law didn’t touch the doctors and scientists at Nova.

She felt sick.

“Does it matter if he’s depressed?” Lendal gibed with a quirk of his eyebrow.

“We might be able to get the results we’re looking for.” He appealed with a knowing tone. “Before you write him off.”

As Lendal thought about it with a nod he gave the order that had her frozen with alarm. No, no, no, no; she didn’t even know they had shock therapy, she couldn’t believe it. As they took 99 out of the MRI scanner they cuffed his arms together again, this time he looked at her. He looked at her as she stared at him with evident worry and it set his teeth on edge, a growl rumbled through his chest before he could prevent it.

Jarring pain erupted through his chin as a guard whacked him in the jaw with the grip of his gun as a warning.

She jolted at the action, her heart jumping to her throat and 99 looked back at her, his mouth bloody as he spat out blood from the hit.

He couldn’t smell her like he usually could, her feminine scent that ignited his senses in all the right ways. There was a wall between them and it set him on edge. He knew the two men in that room with her, the human men that he wanted to harm. She was in that room with those foul smelling men and he didn’t like it.

“Have you ever witness an electro shock therapy session before, nurse?”

She tore her gaze away from 99 as he was hauled to his chained together feet and to Lendal who had asked her a question. With a feeling of dread she knew what he was about to put her through.

“No.” She croaked, shaking her head.

Lendal smiled and it made her blood boil. “Well then, come with me.”

With every step she took, her stomach lurched. There was a room he took her to, a room he instructed security to take 99 to the therapy room. 99 trailed behind them, the clanging of his chains a reminder. She turned to look at him every few steps finding him looking at her with his never changing unreadable look.

“In here, tie him to the table.”

Lendal opened the door to a room that was dark and smelt like singed hair; it knocked her sick. She stepped inside as instructed, her conscious screaming at her to leave, to run, take 99 with her and never come back. She looked around the scarce room, the walls that were barren of any window, any hospitality, just there to contain the muffled screams.

A small dial machine was in the center of the room next to the slab of a bed and she was pushed aside by guards who hoisted 99 on it. He locked eyes with her, and she felt helpless, useless as his eyes conveyed a message she couldn’t read. All she could see was the anger, the animosity and it made her stomach knot.

He was chained to the leather cuffs on his back and doctor Lendal and the neurologist manned the dial and the electrodes.

“Okay, nurse.” It was the scientist that addressed her. “Come here.”

Dread kept her rooted to the spot. She couldn’t wrap her head around it, around the concept that they weren’t kidding about electrotherapy - it was happening, they did it. This was her welcoming to level 6 clearance. Subject 99 tied to a metal primitive slab with thick leather bonds, his body tensed for something she prayed he had never felt before.

“You need to put this in his mouth to protect his teeth and tongue.” He handed her a black rubber pad as she came to the table.

She looked down at it, swallowing thickly at the chilling teeth marks embedded into it. You can’t!! Her mind screamed at her, her morals crumbling as she looked to the male on the table. He looked at her, the hate seeping into his gaze. His nostrils flared as he took in her scent - it soothed him - but it was crippled with fear, the tangy scent unagreeable for him; he didn’t like it on her.

A grunt flew past his lips as he started to fight against the restraints and he heard her drew in a breath. The pungent security guards cocked their guns but he paid them no attention.

You need to lay low… You can’t do anything that gives you away… You have to do this, you have to help the doctors do their jobs until Richard does his...

I’m sorry.

She took a step, cradling his chin softly with her free hand, keeping it firm yet gentle as she coaxed him still with a touch. His skin was smooth, cold beneath her hands and she wished she was touching him under different circumstances. She pressed down on his chin, forcing his mouth apart as she placed the pad between his teeth. She hoped her face was as stoic as she envisioned in her head, with Lendal’s calculative eyes on her she couldn’t afford to look anything but indifferent.

Please Richard - she begged for an unlikely intervention - come now. Please. Come now…

But he didn’t and her heart momentarily stopped as the electrodes pressed against 99’s temples.

There was a ringing sound, the lights flickered and the spine chilling sound of shooting electricity buzzed. A muffled gurgled groan of pain and her blood curdled at the sound and watching his muscles contract through his skin as the electricity flew down his body. His face reddened and the veins protruded from his neck and arms as he fought against the restraints.

She took a step back, visibly horrified and she could see Lendal analysing her from where he stood, pressing the electrodes more firmly to 99’s temples. She couldn’t find it within her to care as she watched the undeserving 99 on the table writhing in pain, his teeth clenched tightly on the pad in his mouth. Tears streamed down his cheeks in defeat and the noises from his mouth stirred something within her.

Her eyes shot to his fingers, the way they twitched rapidly but no ice, no evidence of his gift slipped from them. It was incomprehensible, the effort and strength he must have to prevent his gift from being revealed. The control he must have had was impeccable; yet when he was with her, it slipped, surprising them both. The fact that she seemed to have kept it to herself was even more surprising for him.

But now, under considerable pain all he could think was that the kindness she had shown him thus far had been an illusion - a trap. The looks of kindness, the soft touches that made his body react in ways he had never felt - so sexual - had been a cruel manipulation to weaken him.

Pain shot through his brain, his body numbing yet hyper aware all at once, his body tensing and contracting with the electric shocks. He could barely breathe, his mouth seizing up and his nostrils flaring; angry, betrayed.

She felt awful, she felt ill and she longed to hold him, to protect him from the evil minds of the two doctors.

It was only 20 seconds but it felt like eternity - the ‘therapy’ ceased. Lendal removed the electrodes, placing them on a hook besides the dial.

“He shouldn’t cause you any trouble.” Lendal began, his voice full of arrogant satisfaction that was sickening. “He can be taken to his cell.”

His body was limp, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he tried to regain his breath. The guards unstrapped him from the slab and hauled him up by his arms.

“You can go too, nurse.”

She needn’t be instructed twice. She followed the guards who held 99 tightly as they headed towards an elevator. She felt dirty, the worst she had felt in her life as she stepped inside with them, knowing she had took part in that, hurting when she should have been protecting. She unlocked the door to his cell and the guards tossed him inside as if he was a sack of potatoes.

“You can go back to your duties… I can sort him out.” Her voice was level, surprising herself and the guard opened his mouth to argue but she spoke first. “Look at him, he’s in no state to attack me.” She just wanted to be alone with him, make sure he was okay, tell him she was sorry...

The two details looked at each other in unison, nodding and walking out of the cell. “We’ll be down the hall.”

The door closed behind them and she turned back around.

Subject 99 was on his front, on the cold floor and her every being filled with remorse and sadness. She watched as his torso raised and fell with every deep breath he took, his shoulder blades straining due to his uncomfortable stance on the hard ground.

She crouched down, her hand hesitant and quivering as she reached for his strong forearm. “I’m so so--”

A flick of a switch inside of his head and he was growling at her, his hand seizing her throat quickly. He lifted himself up, sending her crashing onto the floor, his crushing hold around her windwipe making her squirm beneath his robust body. She gasped for air she couldn’t find and clutched onto his wrists frantically.

His dark eyes drilled holes into hers, his look of loath and anger pinning her down with fear. He felt betrayed and he wanted her to know that, he thought she was kind, he thought he could trust her.

Pain erupted in her back at the unforgiving floor and tears pricked her vision, finding it difficult to see. “I’m sorry…” Her words were croaked, forced and barely audible but he heard them.

His knuckles were whitening as he choked her and his brows furrowed. Part of the animal in him wanted to harm her, wanted to make her pay for tricking him but his senses screamed. He didn’t hurt this human, he shouldn’t hurt this human. His hold on her throat eased enough for her to draw in a ragged breath and his knees slid beneath her legs, his instincts coming to a front as he drew in her scent.

“I had no choice.” It was a whimper as her emotions were raw and true.

She felt disgusting for aiding in his torture and if he was to kill her she knew she would deserve nothing less. She just prayed that Richard kept his word - to save them all, save 99 give him a life.

99 looked at her face, looking at her tears and the feeling of guilt tugged at his conscious, something in him. Protective instincts rose that he couldn’t understand. Curiosity he couldn’t understand. He had never been this close to her before, and as her chest heaved beneath him, her breasts pressing against his chest he realised with growing curiosity that he had been hungry for this moment.

He let go of her throat and she relaxed, her hands on his wrists ceasing as they fell loosley to the floor. His arm supported his weight by her head and his other hand didn’t leave her skin body. He ran it down her chest and he could see the widening of her eyes as he pushed aside his anger and let his interest take hold.

Her neck throbbed where his hand had been clenched around it but she had a bigger problem when she felt his lethal hand cup her breast. He should want to kill her but instead he wished to massage out the pain he inflicted around her throat, apologize, and it confused him. She could have screamed for the guards, he knew that they would come at the sound of a distressed female voice, but she lay there, submissive waiting for him.

Speechless and scared she lifted her hands to gingerly push against his chest. Her warm touch on his skin turned him on and he liked it.

His anger was diminishing the more he took her in, the way he palmed her breast through her scrubs had him feeling something he wasn’t accustomed to - but he didn’t shy away from it.

At his complete mercy she couldn’t bring herself to do anything to stop him he bent his elbow and his face grew ever so closer. Oh my god. His face tucked itself into the crook of her neck and she held her breath. What was he going to do? Her mind was spilling, her face warm as she involuntarily began to blush and heat up beneath his half naked body.

99 sniffed her skin, his nose running up and down her throat and she stayed as still as she could.

She had heard rumours of a lab tech being killed after getting to close with a patient, how they had bit down on a jugular and ripped it out without hesitation. She clenched her eyes shut, preparing for pain, but it never came. The weight of him vanished, the hand on her breast lifted and he was no longer knelt between her legs.

“You--!!”

She gasped at the sound of another male voice, loud, clear and filled venom. She sat up quickly, her heart hammering in her ears and panicked. 99 was on his back and looming over him was Daniel, the nurse. He kicked his torso and he doubled over, winded.

“You felt like taking advantage of her, huh!?” Kick.”Just because she’s nice to you!?”

She leapt to her feet. “Stop!”

He ignored her, his foot coming into contact with 99’s nose, blood pouring - innocent blood. “As if she would ever want to fuck you! You fucking worthle--!”

She grabbed the nearest thing she could find - a sedation needle for emergencies. Without thinking, without a moment’s hesitation she had lunged forward, stabbing Daniel in the lower back, pressing the murky liquid into his skin. He paused his attack, his legs stilling. He whirled around, his expression shocked and confused. He looked at her, her alarmed expression and then down as he reached around and pulled out the syringe.

“What…?” His voice was slurred as he eyed the now empty and bloody object in his numbing hand.

The feeling traveled all over his body and before he could utter another word he tumbled to the floor.

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chisie12 · 5 years

Text

Gency Week Day 5: Hyssops/Sacrifice

Day 5: The Dinner, part 1

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19071907/chapters/45677566

That night felt particularly cold, colder than the nights I’ve suffered through before. Was it because I found out about Angela and Jack? With a light leap, I gripped onto a window ledge and hauled myself up. Swiftly and silently, I scaled up the wall using the windows whilst avoiding those whose lights were on. Upon reaching my room, I tapped against the glass at its corner, causing it to slightly dislodge. Then carefully and slowly, I removed it and set it back once I slithered back into my room. The presence of the four walls relaxed my nerves and I draped the removed scarf across my chair. On the table before it was a few things lying around: a couple pieces of transparent film paper, a roll of white glue stick, a pair of scissors and a capped pen. Small traces of cut dried stems scattered around the stationery. I stared at it, feeling forlorn at the sight.

Would she like it, I wonder? Or would she throw it away? Now that she’s got Jack.

And forgotten about you. Thrown aside like a dirty rag.

I ignored the voice in my head and sat onto my bed with a sigh. I dropped my forehead onto clasped fingers, the digits clawing and squeezing harder with every second. Did I truly wanted to let go of her? I lifted my head and rested my chin upon my thumbs. Agony crossed my features at the mere thought of cutting all contact with her. But if I were to really let her go, that would probably have to be my first course of action. I’d have to remove all means to contact her, remove all the pictures we took (even if they were only a rare one or two), but how could I remove the memories that we shared? I pass by her newly occupied office – who’s sorely not Angela – everyday. Every wall I passed, I can see her smile and wave as she greeted me good morning, with the coffee and papers in hand. Every month I’d go for my check-ups, just so she could perform the tests and ensure none of my cybernetics parts were malfunctioning. Which did beg the question, was I really functioning well?

I flexed my arms, feeling the slight drag in my robotic one compared to the one of flesh, and I frowned. Standing up, I stretched and sensed each part of my body, noticing even more of an action lag in my movements.

“Ha!” I tested a straight punch. The movement felt weird, definitely slower than before even though the power was there. Relaxing my stance, I stared at my metal fingers, clenching and unclenching them. The joints felt stiff and hard, and yet another sigh escaped my lips as I dropped to lay supine upon my bed.

‘I guess I’m really not functioning at a 100%.’ I thought bitterly.

It sucked, really, but there was nothing I could do. No one else was better than her in the field, and I haven’t been able to contact Winston either. I’d ask Lena, but I’m sure she hasn’t been able to too. Just where had that scientist of a monkey gone to?

‘And I wish I could ask Angela, but she’d probably scold me and rebut my words.’ I bitterly smiled.

Turning onto my side, I stared into space, forgetting the fact that I hadn’t had dinner or anything to drink in the past few hours. I didn’t know what to think. The blank state of my mind was oddly soothing; Nothing to think about, nothing to worry about.

Maybe I could just let this be. Allow my functions to just slowly deteriorate and go somewhere – maybe find Zen again – and just retire there. Surrounded by peace and tranquillity. That did sound good.

As I turned onto my other side, I caught a glimpse of the opened letter on my bedside table.

‘I wonder if the whole team is going for it.’

The night came and went, and I woke up to the sunlight streaming onto my face. Groaning, I laid on my back and covered my eyes with my arm. There weren’t any missions for me to go on – at least not yet – and I hadn’t planned on doing anything else for the day. For the past four months, when I weren’t on a mission, I was working away at a surprise for Angela, but now knowing that she was with Jack, it somehow didn’t feel right giving it to her, yet at the same time, I didn’t want to keep it.

I peeked an eye open, staring at the wall before me with my arm still cover my face. I felt lost, confused.

‘What do I do now?’

Such an odd feeling, having accomplished something but not knowing what to do next. I slaved away to complete the gift, thinking that even if she forgot, we could always make new ones. Memories were memories, they were in the past, and the person I could spend time with in the present was a hell of a lot more important.

Then why didn’t you visit her in the past few weeks?

Because... because I...

“Ugh,” I slowly rolled to sit up while pressing on my temple. Yeah, I didn’t go and visit her. But I always went to see her.

Every day, not a time passed where I wondered how she was. Every day, I allowed my heart to feel the pain of seeing her smile but it’s not for me, and I let it break in the few times Jack came to see her. Why didn’t I fight? Why did I walk away?

I laughed sadly at myself, feeling my eyes suddenly well up. My body shuddered and I pulled my limbs close as I curled up as small as I possibly could. I fisted the blanket, tugging it higher to cover my face, as if no one could see me when I did that. I failed to hear the pitter-patter of the rain outside.

Seriously, I’m such an idiot. I should have stepped forward instead of running away. Should have given myself a chance. But why? Why did I walk away?

Because... if I truly love her, I can let her go.

“Yo, Genji. Are you in there?” A deep voice came muffled from my door.

Groaning, I glared at the door. “Go away, Jesse. I want to sleep.”

“Nope, commander is calling for us. We got to go.”

Cursing under my breath, I sluggishly stood up and went to my cybernetic suit, or at least the rest of it. “I’m coming.”

~*~*~

Her head pounded terribly like someone was repeatedly, unmusically smashing hard on her skull like a drum.

‘It feels like I drank 5 bottles of straight vodka on an empty stomach...’ Angela groaned while she pushed herself onto her elbows.

The alarm on her phone went off, constantly beeping like the useful annoyance it was. Roughly dismissing it, she begrudgingly slid her legs off the bed. Her toes touched the cold hard flooring, feeling the chill wafting against the floorboards from the rainy night. With a shiver, she got to her feet and hurriedly got herself ready. Another new day. Another day her cafe was open.

After returning home last night, she had crashed straight onto her bed, allowing the night to swallow her whole. Having slept in the clothes she wore out yesterday, they still retained the odour of food. It was a little strong and a little smelly. She grimaced at the oil stains on her sleeves, the faint traces of a myriad of sauces on her skirt. This was probably the part of the job she didn’t fancy as much, and now that she had slept on her bed with this... Looked like she had another chore to do today.

Time at the cafe was business as usual. Nothing really out of the ordinary, well, except for that –

“Whose bag is that, Mei?” Angela inquired when she finally spotted an unknown object hidden away underneath the counter and far behind the tools they kept.

“Huh?” Mei looked up from the cashier after the customer left. Upon seeing the brown paper bag, she turned her eyes up as she tried to remember. “Oh, that’s right. Genji dropped by yesterday after you left. He asked if he could leave the bag here and I said yes.” She watched Angela’s reaction closely. Would she be upset? Would she be sad?

Yet, all the blonde said was: “Oh.”

Mei: ...

Angela left the bag back where it was without even opening it. She didn’t ask anything or said anything else. Instead, she went back to work as though nothing had happened. Mei scrunched up her eyebrows. Just what was...

“Good afternoon! Could I please get a Matcha Frappuccino, please?” A customer’s sudden arrival surprised Mei out of her thoughts.

With the toothy smile and clear voice, she replied, “Yes, sure! It won't take long.” And off she went to work her magic.

This was how the days passed, sometimes with the occasional appearance of Junkrat or Jack in the cafe, even Jesse and Lena would visit, but that one man (yes, she considered him a man) never appeared. She saw neither hair nor hide of the man. When she asked Jesse or Lena about him, they’d vaguely answer her and avoid the sensitive topic. Did he not want to see her? Disappointment coursed through her veins, stacking each day to the point she thought he hated her, because what man would stay with the woman he liked who defended another man before him? Even the revelation left a bitter taste on her tongue once she realised how unreasonable she might have been. She could have taken it slow, gently getting in between them and breaking up the fight.

‘Why were they fighting though?’ She wondered more than once. She never asked at that point of time and now might be a tad too late as well.

If only she had spoken softly that day, then maybe she wouldn’t have chased him away. This past week, she found herself hoping more and more that the man would visit and order the regular green tea like he normally –

And the second revelation hit her hard. Oh, Gods, she was an idiot. An inconsiderate, insensitive. Idiot.

What else were there? What else?

Her heart couldn’t take this anymore. How much more did she hurt the guy? It wasn’t even a gradual hurt, a gradual sinking of pain and aches, but a downright slap in the face. Twice.

“Of course you’d be protective over your knight in shining armor. Isn’t he just the greatest?"

“The perfect American poster boy. Perfect for you.”

She squeezed her eyes shut when she entered the kitchen, dropping the tray onto the metal countertop. Genji’s words resounded loud and clear in her mind, and she could feel the sting in his words, the hidden agony lacing the tone. The words echoed mercilessly, slowly building up until the sheer ache gripped at the throat, choking her. Forcing her breaths to steady, she tried to focus on the food in her hands but her breathing became shallow and her head began to terribly hurt.

"I mean like, in the field of prosthesis, people are working to understand, create and improve artificial limbs to main normal body functions even after the loss of limbs. I even saw that a child using her new robotic arm for the first time and it worked perfect! Isn't that amazing? The nerves must have…"

"Science and technology have come so far! I'm sure that ordinary people can afford this in the future too!"

She took a sharp inhale at the sudden rush of memory invading her brain. Unlike the one before, this one was clear, vivid as though she was watching an episode.

She watched how the Angela in the memory continued babbling on and on about a scientific topic that she couldn’t fathom, and how Genji silently listened and paid attention. He continued eating as he did, but when she saw him quietly nudge her hand so that she’d eat, something got lodged in her throat.

“Angela?” One of her kitchen staff called out warily.

Shaking her head, Angela quickly left the kitchen through the back door and closed it behind her. She slid down with her back against it shakily until she dropped onto the ground. Covering her eyes with her palms, the memory went on as a patch of wetness covered her sleeves.

This time she watched as the past Angela locked the door and gently set a sleeping Genji on her lap. Her fingers combed through his hair and she could feel the phantom senses in reality. They were smooth and soft, and it brought a sense of comfort to run her fingers through his hair. Sometimes she’d massage his scalp, but she didn’t miss each look of endearment the past Angela would give the young man.

The immense love past Angela had for Genji began to well up inside, bubbling in the deepest parts of her heart. The emotion coursed through her veins, warming her body and chasing the chill of the pattering drizzle outside the cafe away.

But it didn’t end there.

The older memories, of those in the battlefield, of those in the labs, started rushing in. They were all only memories with Genji, of the times she smiled at him and wished him well on missions, of those times she’d heal him during said missions, or when he’d protect her as she healed the team, but it was the times he’d sit through her babble and drink her coffee – laced with alcohol oh gosh – that really got her. Never once in those memories did he complain. He always paid attention and loved her the way she was, goofy nerd and all.

“Angela? Angela! Where are you?” Mei’s worried voice drifted over from behind and she heard footsteps near the door. Mei knocked before trying to open the door, only to find it locked. “Are you out there? It’s raining!”

Angela shot to her feet in a panic as she hastily wiped the tears away. “I'm alright! Just needed some air!”

Mei was sceptical, having heard the sob and sniffle in the blonde’s voice. “Alright. Just take your time. I got this.”

“I'll be out soon.” Angela waited until Mei walked away before setting her head against the door. The eaves overhead blocked out the rain, so she wasn’t entirely drenched, but as she rubbed her arms to warm herself up, she couldn’t help reminiscing about the memories that flooded her mind.

‘I was that in love with him?’ Angela looked up into the rain. ‘Then why weren’t we together?’

Patting her cheeks, she breathed in the cold, rainy air and wiped the tear stains away. With one last look at the rain, she turned around and unlocked the door. It was weird. Extremely weird. But she didn’t so lonely after that, especially since the rain didn’t let up the whole day.

She liked to think that he was there, in the rain, with her. Because after all, two lovers in the rain didn’t need an umbrella.

And so, the days then came and went. Angela didn’t treat Jack any different, except that now she kept a distance from him. Not because she regained feelings for Genji no, but she couldn’t bring herself to trust him anymore. From the memories she managed to recover, she could tell that she was an agent before, better known as Mercy on the field too.

‘Where are my staff and blaster?’ Angela eyed Jack from the corner of her eyes. Once doubt was seeded within you, it will spread like venom and it was futile to remove it. It can be minimised, yes, but there was no way, the person would fully trust in you again. After all, once bitten, twice shy.

When Friday the 13th came, Angela was already panicking and clucking like a frightened hen. The cafe was closed for a long break that day and was due to open again next Monday. A discomfort was stuck in her chest as she played and scrunched the ends of the dress she wore. It was simple, unadorned dark golden slip on silk dress that billowed by her feet. Her hair, washed and dried, was left hanging loosely, yet she couldn’t help but think that it would look better styled into an updo. Flattening out the dress by her thighs, she inhaled deeply, till the air filled her lungs fully and tried to calm down.

‘There’s no reason why they’d hate me right? I mean, I'm still ‘Angela’ even if I don’t really remember them?’

No, she hadn’t told Jack that she had planned on going to Lumiere Hotel. Nor did he ask anyway.

But she wanted to go. Go and confirm her identity, to find out who exactly was Overwatch, and she didn’t want to simply rely on the information she gathered over the internet. She read the news that surrounded Overwatch, the battles they fought and the deeds they’ve done. Although there was a lot of good, there was also some bad, and it felt surreal to see the names she was familiar with. Ana Amari, one of the founding fathers of Overwatch and an expert sniper, but was currently a harmless florist? Reinhardt, a former crusader and now a general in the army training soldiers. Mei, at least Mei remained someone remotely similar: A climatologist and adventurer through and through. She read of Jack, Commander Jack Morrison leading the team against evil and fighting to maintain peace – the same Jack that hid the truth from her? She even saw another similar name, Genji. He looked different in the pictures, fully cladded in metal with a green visor, his hand holding a sharp and slightly curved katana. Could that possibly be the same Genji she knew? Scarred and all?

And when she got to the parts with Mercy, Doctor Angela Ziegler, a nano-biologist and a field medic in Overwatch, she felt... weird to say the least. Even though it felt like she was reading about someone else, she somehow knew that this was her. The same Angela Ziegler who was also a quaint little cafe owner.

She dropped her arms to the side, taking a good luck at the final product of her creation. Her soft blonde hair was braided, twisted and pinned into a messy bun. Loose strands framed her face that was painted with a tint of pink on her lips and some shadows on her eyelids. Black mascara and eyeliner lined her lashes and lash line, and a little blush on her high cheeks. On the dresser table was a golden masquerade mask trimmed in a black lustre that extended out into one angel wing on the right side, an attempt at matching her outfit. As the mask settled onto her face, the angel wing neatly curved around her head and the black trimmings gave it a beautiful contrast with her blonde hair, elegantly outlining the half angel wing.

“I look fine. I look fine,” she chanted to herself. “It will be fine.”

And with that, she was off to the Lumiere hotel. The taxi ride was quiet with only the engines other driving cars roaring through in muffled sounds. Angela rubbed her arms at the chill of the air conditioner blasting in the taxi, cursing her stupidity of forgetting her jacket while she stared out the window, dim streetlights and the reddish orange hues of sunset glowing upon her face. The taxi driver watched her from his rear-view mirror.

“Miss.”

Angela did not respond.

“Miss.” He tried again louder and when that didn’t work: “Miss!” He tapped at the back of the shotgun passenger seat. “We're already here.”

“Oh,” Angela apologised while paying for the fare. “I'm sorry. I spaced out.”

The taxi driver waved it off and drove away after she fully stepped out and shut the door. The Lumiere Hotel was grand. Tall glass doors were guarded by a pair of tall potted plants at the front entrance where behind her stood a semi-circular porte-cochère that welcomed the guests. In the centre of it was a small fountain splashing. Walking through the high vestibule, a large crystal chandelier sparkled under the warm white lights, inserting the velvet couches by the windows surrounded by some flowers.

Hyssops, she noted off-handedly.

Angela walked towards the customer service counter with the mask in hand. “Good evening. I'm here for the masquerade dinner.”

“Hi,” the hotel staff beamed. “It’s held on the fourth floor, in the Diamond Hall.”

“Thank you.”

“You're welcome. Have a nice dinner!”

Anxiety gripped at her heart with every tap of her high heels. All the reasons she shouldn’t be here came flooding in, as though her body chemistry had just sent them a blank invitation. My thoughts swirled on chaos and the panic grew or faded in dependence. To stay or to leave? Staying would mean facing a horde of people she didn’t remember, face hidden daggers and answer medical questions she clearly could not, but leaving would ease the intense beating of her heart. It would ease her mind and she could forever put this behind her. Remaining a small cafe owner didn’t hurt. She enjoyed it, she loved it. Every day there were flowers to fluff and trim, coffee to make, chocolates to create. But then she would never know. Who exactly was Overwatch? Who exactly was she? Would there be another doctor skilled enough to help recover her memories? Staying would allow her that chance, leaving... she'd pin herself as a coward and suffer a lifetime of regret.

Besides, if she went, there was a chance he would too, right?

Settling the mask back onto her face, the cool sensation reeled her back into reality. The elevator doors dinged to a stop at the fourth floor. She took a deep breath in, clutching her purse when the elevator doors began to open. There was a crack of the other side, a sea of black dotted with colours. When they fully opened, she stepped out and was startled at the large group of people socialising. Men stood in fine tuxedos while the women strutted their elegant dresses and subtly showed off their every jewels hanging off their bodies. Rings with rocks as big as the rock sugars at work sparked brilliantly, diamond earrings hung heavily on their ears and the bracelets, some gold and some silver, adorned their wrists. Seeing nearly every shade on the colour wheel in such a dazzling display, Angela suddenly felt plain and terribly underdressed. Taking another deep breath in, she lifted her chin and began walking towards the cocktail bar with confident strides.

Whatever. Her character would be the best accessory.

Picking up a glass of champagne, she daintily sipped. Although it tasted good, bubbly and ticklish on her tongue, she still frowned at how light it was.

‘The kirsch tastes much better than this.’

She eyed the crowd, feeling her heart sink. She recognised not one of those in the crowd. From their conversations, they simply sounded like ordinary people in politics or business or were well known in their own industries.

Was she at the right place? Looking around, she saw the name ‘Diamond Hall’ on a golden plaque nailed to the wall next to the closed hall doors. Yep, definitely the right place, but why did it feel weird?

The bustling hall was a little cold at the intensity of the air conditioner blasting and Angela wondered who was drunk enough to fully blast the AC at its coldest. Were they trying to freeze someone here?

When the clock hit 8.30pm did the closed heavy wooden doors open and the sea of people enter towards their tables. Angela observed her surroundings. Right on the other end of the hall was a rectangular stage and facing it were fifty round tables covered in white satin and a flower centrepiece.

She aimlessly walked forward. ‘Hyssops again? Is there a theme going on?’

Which was her table, she wasn’t sure. She only prayed and hoped that she would see a familiar person and that they would direct her to the right one, but even as she nearly reached the front tables, she spotted no one.

‘Don’t tell me not even one of the Overwatch members are going to come?’ she frowned. ‘But Mei had an invitation too. Why didn’t she come?’

It wasn’t until she made the decision to turn around, forget the happenings of tonight and go home, did someone call out to her from behind. “Is that you, Angie?”

That voice. Angela turned around and saw a tall blond man cladded in a dark blue suit and a white shirt underneath. He wore a simple golden coloured mask from where those vivid blue eyes stared at her. “Jack?”

“It is you!” He quickly crossed over to her. “Why are you here?” Had she received a letter after all? Why didn’t she tell him?

“I received an invitation for the dinner. So I came,” Angela saw no point in hiding it from him anymore, but it didn’t mean she’d explain every detail.

Jack frowned at her curt tone, but otherwise shook it off without questioning it. He then led her to the second table before the stage. “Here’s our table.”

“Thanks.” And she sat down, simply waiting. She had noticed when they neared the table, names brushed in golden calligraphy on lilac paper were placed on the plates.

Dr. Angela Ziegler, Commander Jack Morrison, Gabriel Reyes, Ana Amari, Reinhardt Wilheim, Lucio, Genji, D.Va.... all the familiar names that she had read online. They were here. She stared at her card, feeling the smooth texture of the paper. Her eyes glazed over as she thought. Doctor? Doctor Angela Ziegler? Then back to having received the invitation, recollecting the memories of the expressions of those she knew in the past four months.

‘So I really am that Doctor Ziegler?’

The bustling of people in the air-conditioned room and the clinking of their glasses felt foreign to her. Not quite uncomfortable but simply rather not her cup of coffee. And the champagne in her hand still tasted like fruit juice. To flag down a waiter for something stronger or not? After thinking for awhile, she opted not to.

‘I’m here to find and confirm the information. Not to drink away.’ She mentally grumbled, but she was definitely in need for something stronger, nicer, when she returns.

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for coming tonight!” The hall lights dimmed as the master of ceremonies stood on stage. He was lean and wiry, donned in a silver suit and a matching mask that contrasted his dark hair. “Tonight’s dinner will be a full course meal, celebrating Overwatch’s good deeds in the past of trying to advocate, maintain and gain peace for us all.” He glanced at Angela and Jack, seeing the table otherwise empty and disappointment flashed through his eyes. “I see that we do have two of their old members with us! Let’s give them a warm welcome!”

A large round of applause welcomed the duo.

“Wow, they actually did manage to invite them!”

“The table is pretty empty though. But two is better than one?”

“I thought they liked to lay low?”

Chatter about them began to spread as she felt the scrutinising stares of the crowd. Like an animal on display at the zoo, just watched and stared at. She turned a deaf ear towards the rest of the crowd, listening attentively to the master of ceremonies drone on about some of Overwatch’s past deeds, things that she had already read before. When he was done, he suddenly shifted the topic.

“And tonight, I would be honoured to introduce to you a very special guest of tonight’s dinner. Our mayor!”

Angela’s eyes widened in pleasant surprise. Was Overwatch’s good deeds really that special that it could warrant even the mayor to show his presence?

She watched as a man on the table next to theirs stand up. He was surrounded by rich socialites, dressed lavishly that their gems sparkled and suits crisp. He lifted the glass of champagne in his hand. “Thank you kindly. It is my honour to be present at such a fine dinner as we celebrate the genuine actions of maintaining peace in this chaotic world.”

The master of ceremonies politely replied in agreement before the mayor sat back down. Lines of waiters and waitresses wearing similar silver masquerade masks then appeared from the doors on either side of the stage, carrying large trays of the first course. Wine and a couple of other stronger alcohol were brought out as well, but she stuck to the fruity champagne.

The evening carried on rather dully. Even as she ate together with Jack and the master of ceremonies was trying to liven up the atmosphere, she found her mind wandering back to the memories she recovered. The warmth they sparked was more interesting than any performance that was put on. Some businessmen and politicians came to introduce themselves to Jack and her (why Jack she’d understand but her? She really couldn’t comprehend), but Jack simply made polite conversation with them while she acknowledged their presence and gave her input from time to time. There was a dance floor near the centre and couples danced across it when there weren’t any performances playing. Beautiful dresses twirled and billowed with their movements as their partners dipped and spun them around. Angela couldn’t find herself to be jealous of them, only because she couldn’t even sort out her own feelings.

Not one minute had passed without her eyes scanning for a familiar ninja, hoping she’d catch even just a glimpse and she’d sulkily sip at her drink and nibble at her food. Her hopes were shattered constantly.

It wasn’t until the hour hand struck nine that something different happened. The hall dimmed considerably, and the lights shone directly at the stage. The master of ceremonies stood there once again but there was a different aura emitting from him this time. It was darker, more dangerous and an evil cackle lightly echoed from the speakers, husky and deep, bringing forth a chill that crept up everyone’s spine. Jack and Angela straightened their backs at the sign of danger, lips pursed and eyes sharp. She noticed that Jack had leaned closer towards her, his posture deceptively relaxed as his hand hovered near his suit. She said not a word.

“I hope you’re all enjoying your dinner,” the master of ceremonies chuckled. The tone was no longer welcoming and warm, but instead an eerie undertone, cold and detached. He was unperturbed at the lack of response as everyone stared at him warily. The silence congealed almost to the point of suffocation. But that was exactly what he wanted. Their fear. The cold hard looks of silent panic. The suspense. “Hahaha! Come on. Did you not find the food to your liking, you pompous, entitled trash of society? Say something already! Aren’t you all big shots!”

Amidst the fear and suspense, waves of indignation rolled among the crowd. Fists clenched and flames bursting in their eyes as they tried to hold their anger and pride in. The master of ceremonies laughed harder at the sight, a bellyful of mocking laughter that had him tipping his head back in utter glee and a hand on his stomach.

“Look at your faces. I bet some of you are going to just die from anger.” The master of ceremonies grinned at the crowd and he waved his hand high up in the air. The same group of waiters and waitresses appeared again, this time with trays of red wine. The angry crowd remained furious at his condescending antics, though some still accepted the wine they were offered while some… They weren’t as forgiving.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” A man shot to his feet as the waitress served him his cup of wine. In his fit of rage, he swiped the glass off the table, the sound of it shattering especially jarring in the hall. The wine-red colour splattered across the tiled floors, seeping in between its crack as they made their way towards the master of ceremonies who merely watched with a smile, so fake and so irritating to look at. “I was invited here for a celebratory dinner. Not to some clown’s performance. Manager! I demand to see your manager!”

The smile never once wavered, not even when others began to chorus their agreements with the man. Yet, when his lips parted, and the words rolled off his tongue, there was a dangerous glint that only Angela and Jack could see from the short distance between them. A shudder ran down her spine and she rubbed her arms at the discomfort that crept up her throat. Not long now until the dinner was over, and she could then return to the quaint comfort of her café.

“My manager? You won’t even be alive to see him.”

“Impudent! Go and call your mana –”

Bang! Click!

The doors to the hall slammed shut, the sound echoing and shaking the walls and people inside before it clicked lock. Two tall burly men with silver masquerade masks appeared before the stage doors and stood before it, stoic and menacing with their crossed arms. Their muscles bulged behind their clothes, the lines sharp and defined.

“What are you doing! You can’t keep us contained in here!” A lady screeched in fearful retaliation. She scrambled to switch on her phone, attempting to dial the authorities when a loud crack reverberated against the walls, mixing together with her terrified screams and the shattering of her phone.

Angela brought her gaze back onto the master of ceremonies, frowning at the handgun that he held in his hand.

“Shut your fucking mouth, bitch. The police won’t be able to come. The whole area’s already on lock down. Hehehe.” Leaning his weight onto a leg, he sneered down at the two Overwatch agents that had attended the dinner. “Although I wish more of you came, it’s better than nothing.”

Angela held onto her chair, fighting the urge to have a go at the smug man. She had no weapon, nothing but her purse and phone with her. She would basically be presenting herself on a silver platter. Jack gently removed her hand and gripped it in his, as though reassuring her that he got this.

“I know you have many questions but trust me, I’ll keep you safe.”

She nodded her head obediently while biting her bottom lip. Trust him? She had no other choice in this situation.

“Alright. Enough chit-chat I guess,” the master of ceremonies shrugged. Resting the hand holding the gun on his hip, he placed his other hand on his masquerade mask and pressed onto two hidden mechanisms installed by the temples. As he dragged his hand down, the half mask elongated to fully cover his entire face before swinging his arm out to the side and snapped his fingers.

At that cue, the waiters and waitresses, as well as the two burly men by the doors, mimicked his previous action as their half masks also transformed. With not a second later, the air conditioning in the hall started to hiss and a milky white substance began to flow into the hall. It looked similar to the fog that a fog machine would release, and for the split-second Jack saw the fog, he immediately retrieved his handkerchief, wetting it against the cup of mineral water they served, and pressed it against Angela’s nose and mouth, before pushing her down below the table. She looked at the terror and worry in his clear blue eyes, felt the warmth of his hand on her cheeks as they held her head in place to face him.

“Don’t leave this place, okay? And try not to breathe in the fog as much as possible. Please. I beg you. I know you’ve been a little distant lately and I’ve wronged you, but I really can’t lose you.” Not again. “Please, Angie. Promise me.”

Guilt stood up and sat on her heart at his words. She could only nod obediently yet again, but she didn't make the promise. His eyes flashed with hurt at her silence and his muscles tensed. There was a warmth upon her forehead and her eyes flitted up to briefly catch the glimpse of his lips and her ears catching the barely audible words he told her last before he disappeared behind the table cloth.

“I’m sorry.”

#gencyweek #gency week #gw5 day 5 #gency fic #gency au #angst #genji why would you be a hermit #chase her damnit

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pamphletstoinspire · 5 years

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Suicidal Ideation in Church and State

With the terrible events of this past weekend, which witnessed mass shootings in both Dayton and El Paso, the media-consuming public is being subjected to any number of diagnoses from activists, journalists, social scientists, and others, especially Democratic candidates for the presidency.

What I wish to propose in this Ad Rem is that the true etiology underlying many of these mass shootings is very similar to the etiology of current civil and especially ecclesiastical illnesses.

Prescinding from these most recent massacres, about which too little is presently known, there is evidence that connects certain pharmaceuticals (psychotropic drugs) with homicidal ideation. This will probably get some but not enough attention in the next few days and weeks. Other causes are at work, to be sure (mostly spiritual), but anyone who is familiar with the iatrogenic nightmares of the opioid crisis and the benzodiazepine crisis will find what I’m saying here credible. As one who has experienced both of these crises up close in the debilitating effects they have had on my parents, I have no trust in the system that fostered them.

Big Pharma is the tail that wags the dog of the “healthcare” industry in America. And yes, the power quotes were deliberate. As is the case with other things our modern parlance couples with the word industry (e.g., food, music, entertainment), healthcare has suffered immeasurably from being industrialized, capitalized, and governmentalized.

But to bring us closer to our point, there is another harmful effect of certain widely used pharmaceuticals: suicidal ideation. I refer to the known association between suicide and some classes of drugs, such as opioids, SSRIs, and benzodiazepines. For example, there is a correlation between the alarming rate of military suicides we keep hearing about and the pharmaceuticals military personnel are given to treat PTSD and other problems.

When psychotropic drugs are prescribed for people diagnosed with psychopathologies by the failed mental health system, what is happening? Supposedly sick people are given drugs that we know make people sick — and included in that latter sickness is violent ideation, of both the suicidal and homicidal varieties. This is not healthcare, but societal suicide that enriches the drug companies and their co-conspirators. Dr. G.C. Dilsaver summarized it this way in a recent interview (around the 2:04:00 mark): “In short, the mental health system, the psychopharmacological companies, and the insurance agencies get away with murder.”

These terrible phenomena of drug-induced mass shootings and rising military suicide rates may be compared to the current crisis in the Catholic Church with very clarifying results.

The three-part pattern is quite similar: (1) A genuine problem exists, (2) to which is applied an unhealthy remedy, (3) with disastrous results. Here is a concrete application in the mental health profession, where a patient might: (1) experience some sort of anxiety or depression, diagnosed by a “mental health professional” using his handy-dandy, unscientific DSM, (2) at which point he is treated by psychotropics, producing the result of (3) iatrogenic sickness, including possibly suicide and/or homicide.

Let us apply this pattern to one current “Catholic problem,” church closings: (1) There is the problem of low Church attendance resulting in financial hardship for parishes. (2) The “remedy” is to close parish churches by combining two existing parishes into one and selling off the property of the church building no longer needed, possibly demolishing the building so that it does not become desecrated by its new owners. (3) Among the known results of such an action is that a definite number of parishioners will leave not only the parish, but the Catholic Church, for good. One estimate has that number at forty percent. According to Philip Gray, who runs the Saint Joseph Foundation, the percentage of Catholics who leave due to church closings varies based on how well the bishop handles the situation: if well, it goes down to around twenty percent; if badly, it goes up to about sixty percent. So the best-case scenario in church closings is that one in five parishioners is lost to the Catholic Church! Therefore, closing churches is a losing proposition for the Church, a gun to the ecclesiastical head.

What would a real remedy look like? Here is a missionary solution: Send priests, upper-class seminarians, and religious out into the streets to invite people — Catholics and non-Catholics — to come to Church, getting the Roman collar, the cassock, and the religious habit in plain view and making your new diocesan missionaries vulnerable to a hostile or indifferent populace. They will be targets, but that’s OK, so were the Apostles. Once they have people’s attention, they must invite them, challenge them, engage them, hear their grievances compassionately, and answer their questions with thoroughly orthodox and uncompromising replies. Put on special classes and some cultural events for the people you have so invited. Make them feel welcome, not by some big PR splurge that you’ve paid too much for on TV and radio, but by having genuine human interaction that has as its sole purpose the glory of God and the salvation of souls. In short, save the parish; don’t shut it down, and save souls in the process: a net gain for the Church.

It is probable that there are some shakers and movers in the parish, capable and energetic lay folk who want to do something good for the Church. Instead of clericalizing these zealous individuals by making them Eucharistic ministers, lectors, “song leaders,” and other unnecessary add-ons to the clerics and male acolytes in the sanctuary, have them help with these truly missionary efforts. They could actually be working to save souls.

Note that the proposed solution is missionary. In other words, it involves the Church doing something integral to the divine constitution of the Church and therefore traditional. Traditional remedies are the best!

Another example: Instead of merging a Catholic hospital system with a pro-abortion secular institution in order to “save” it — which is institutionally suicidal as well as homicidal to bodies and souls — try expanding the reach of authentic Catholic healthcare by partnering with medical schools that enthusiastically assent to the Church’s moral magisterium, and establishing guilds of Catholic physicians, nurses, and support staff who take professional oaths to be pro-actively pro-life and pro-family. No, it won’t be easy, but partnering with the medical culture of death is taking a Glock to the head!

Other examples:

Youth programs designed to “keep the young people,” or draw them back to the Church: Instead of trying to make them “relevant” by employing the worst of pop-culture and therefore giving them nothing particularly Catholic to grab hold of, have family-based activities that bring youth, parents, and clergy together. Emphasize holiness by offering retreats, wholesome camping and/or scouting activities, and events that promote genuine culture. Focus the events around the liturgical year, the sacraments, and big anniversaries, e.g., of the parish, to give them that sense of belonging to a community that they need.

Seminary formation: Instead of welcoming effeminate men into the seminary, as has been common in the last decades (even still!), make a very public statement that you only want masculine men who want to sacrifice themselves in the seminary (think vintage 1985 Marines), and that you will keep the homosexuals out; challenge young men to be “man enough” to embrace the Cross of the Catholic priesthood, and then introduce traditional clerical asceticism into the seminary environment and formation programs. Teach them what spiritual fatherhood is. No, this is not an attempt at recruiting “dumb jocks” to the priesthood; strong academics and exposure to genuine Catholic culture must also be present in the formation.

Altar Servers: Make it an exclusive male-only brotherhood, emphasizing virtue as well as knowledge of how to serve.

Some of what is true of Church demographics also applies to civil societies in former Christendom. Institutionally, most European nations are displaying suicidal ideation, too. Declining birthrates are compensated by profligate immigration from Muslim countries. That is a gun to the national head if ever there was one. But what can be done about it? Consider Hungary, where strict immigration laws prevent Muslim invasion and financial incentives are available to married couples who have at least three children. No wonder the liberal globalist elites hate Viktor Orbán!

In the Church, bishops could do things to incentivize higher birthrates by imitating the impressive incentive of Georgian Orthodox Patriarch Ilia II, who offered personally to baptize every third child and over born to a married couple. He actually caused a demographic uptick in his country, a former Soviet republic. It should be mentioned that for the Church to accomplish this, her ministers must fearlessly preach the truth about marriage and parenthood to the faithful, including the mortally sinful nature of birth control as well as abortion. Priests and bishops who do that are still, sadly, rare birds.

In general, churchmen seem to favor expensive bureaucratic solutions to the problems caused by modernity when the answer is a return to tradition, even if that return to tradition will require some modern methods (such as electronic media). It’s bad enough to be ineffective, but, as we have seen, churchmen become institutionally suicidal whenever they do something contrary to the nature of the Church — her divine constitution, her faith or morals — such as partnering with an expensive pro-abortion PR firm, as at least one archdiocese in the US actually does!

As far as the lowly faithful are concerned, we cannot institute these changes, but we can teach people the truth about the problems and authentic solutions that flow from a well-formed sensus Catholicus. And the laity can also use the power of the purse string by supporting only apostolates that actually advance the mission of the Church rather than picking up someone else’s suicide tab.

When many of the old nominally Catholic institutions have killed themselves off, those few who have reformed themselves in fidelity to tradition will join the new ones that will inevitably crop up to foster a genuine renaissance of Catholicity. Then the Church will have the resources to provide authentically Catholic remedies to all those horrible social problems about which there is so much clueless pontificating today.

BY: BROTHER ANDRÉ MARIE

From: www.pamphletstoinspire.com

#suicidal idealtion in church and state

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