video | t.crawford

[sanctus_dei]

[Hello, good morning. Theo has Some Opinions to share about what occurred this week and he's loudly going to tell you about them. Once the dizziness and nausea wear off, anyway.

While the more minute details now escape him, a few key events stand out in his mind, that particularly of his death in Area X. He's probably one of the first ones to return from the sim as well, not very well equipped either in his real life nor in the sim for wilderness survival in such a hostile environment.]

Hey, Navarch? What the fuck was that?! How fucking dare you pull something like this with little warning and no choice! Did you people think this was going to be done kinda cute trip through the woods or something? What was the point to any of it?! Just to mentally torture us?

I hope you fucking choke. And same goes to any wardens who thought this was a good idea and went along with it. Fuck all of you.

Comments

[omniavincit]

Have you read Invisible Cities?

[sanctus_dei]

what? I haven't heard of it.

[omniavincit]

[ A pause as he contends with an inexplicable flush of self-consciousness. ] It's wonderful. An explorer regaling an aging emperor with tales of cities not on any map.

But you asked for a point.

"Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places."

[sanctus_dei]

[It's from a few decades after his time, unfortunately.

There's a long pause as he processes this, and formulates an answer.]

from a third-person perspective maybe i would have appreciated it. i'd be lying if i said Area X wasn't fascinating, at least from what i remember of it now. and i probably would have even appreciated it from a first-person one if i hadn't felt so

[Grief-stricken. Guilty. Terrified. Alone.

There's a pause.]

overwhelmed by everything. it pushes out everything else i can remember and makes the whole experience just one long nightmare now and the only thing left is how awful it felt.

it seems cruel.

[omniavincit]

Somewhere there's a world that's all Shimmer. [ And the part of him that can't resist reading into things, casting an ant or an untied shoelace into metaphor, thinks maybe this simulation was meant to show them what to do: setting up a confrontation with a refracted self in a place of otherworldly beauty and terror. ]

I write everything down as soon as I get back. Not the good parts: everything. The things that bother you are what you learn from, most of the time. Things that are uncomfortably close.

I can help.

[sanctus_dei]

[Another pause. Theo looks at that last line for a a bit longer than he realizes.]

i guess i can try that.

i still don't like this. and i am not looking forward to the next one.

[William, you may have just got through to this kid. Even in the tiniest way. Consider it a victory.]

[omniavincit]

I won't tell you how to feel. But don't shut it out, all right?

And I am really curious. I don't think we met.

[sanctus_dei]

i don't think i have much choice about whether or not i have to go through them, do i?

in that sim? i didn't meet very many people. i had been avoiding them since i want supposed to be there in the first place. i had snuck in to find someone.

[omniavincit]

No, but you choose what to do with it. Some people have very tidy notions of who they are. Is that you?

Who?

[sanctus_dei]

[He's not sure if he doesn't know how to answer that, or just doesn't want to.]

there's nothing tidy about who i am.

a family member.

[omniavincit]

Can't you say their name?

[sanctus_dei]

does it matter? it was my brother. just a different version of him.

[omniavincit]

Nobody else is gonna say it, you know?

Did you find him?

[sanctus_dei]

no. he had to have been long dead by the time we got there.

[It's probably getting clearer why he was so damned upset about this sim.

He adds a follow up after a minute or two.]

His name's Greg.

[omniavincit]

I'm sorry. [ For the uncertainty as much as his death. Even now William can't help but think there was something beautiful about the transformations wrought by Area X, something essential and undeniable. ]

Is he alive in your world?

[sanctus_dei]

yes. but i hadn't seen him in awhile before i died.

[It was over a year since he'd last seen him, and before that it had been almost two. It was difficult on Theo, who followed his older brother like his shadow while growing up.

Things from the sim are falling into place for him. How he had felt about his brother sacrificing his life to give Theo a better one, and how Theo had wasted it.

He doesn't like this feeling.]

[omniavincit]

[ That strikes a familiar chord. ] He doesn't have magic, does he?

[sanctus_dei]

no. no one in my family does. not mentioned anywhere in our family tree as far as we know. i'm very special, you see.

[That's some sarcasm effective even over text.

A brief pause, and then he adds:]

he was in the military. navy.