Vanya's Journal: The NightmareThe style of Vanya's script changes over the following pages - it becomes darker, almost pained, as if she'd struggled to write the words. No longer the flowing script it always was, it appears almost... tortured. Many of the lines are crossed out, or smudged beyond recognition, but you do your best to read what's there.The mind is a safe haven. If all the rest of the world goes to hell around you, so long as you have a strong mind that you can trust, you can remain level-headed and calm. It's part of why only the stronger-willed are able to survive at Spearbreakers - in a way, Spearbreakers
is a hellhole.
But what if that's actually true, in a more literal sense? What if Spearbreakers
is Hell? The Spawn, violent and disfigured though they are, are still but dwarves. As they never die, where are their souls? I would imagine their souls and minds remain within their bodies, feeling every ounce of pain as their nerves are shredded in the transformation process, watching helplessly through blackened eyes as the monster that controls their body gnashes and slices at their former compatriots. They're trapped... in a hell all their own. I imagine they must want nothing more than to believe none of it is real.
What if the mind can't be trusted? What if there's a chance it's not always telling the truth, or that it lies outright, all the time? What if it conceals things from you, or invents things that aren't real? What if you aren't who you seem to be?
But on the other hand... what if you
want to believe it lies? What if you'd rather falsely believe it's untrustworthy, rather than believe that what you see, feel, hear and know is real?
It would be an escape, those beliefs; to believe that none of it is real. To believe that you're not actually a Holistic Spawn, and you're not actually murdering your friends, and your body isn't twisted into a hellish form.
But when you distrust your mind... you invariably lose your sanity. Still... if revealed to be a monster... being weak-willed enough to lose your mind would be a blessing.
I almost wish I could.
~~~
My plan was to hunt Urist down and apologize - to tell him that I was sorry, and that I hadn't meant what I said. I'd only been upset - I could see that now. He didn't deserve my accusations, and I knew it. Jealousy can cause great wounds between friends, and I didn't want this wound to be deep enough to destroy what we had. After how I'd acted, a relationship was out of the question. Though I'll admit I found that thought terribly depressing, I didn't want a friendship out of the question, too.
Snatching a cloak from my little cabinet and throwing it on, I pulled the hood up over my head and took one last glance at the mirror before I left. My eyes lingered on the stony frame, stained with specks of Halion's blood from when I'd tossed my Ballpoint suit into the sink.
Forcing my eyes away from it, I walked to the door and pressed the button. It opened smoothly, and I started towards the laboratory door.
"Where are you going? Stop." Mr Frog stepped into my path, examining me critically. "You can't leave." He was stirring a reddish liquid in a flask.
I paused for a moment in surprise. "...Of course I can leave..."
He glared at me. "If you leave, you'll be snatched up and taken to Ballpoint."
"...What?"
"Stupid, stupid girl," he muttered, turning to the table beside him and adjusting several dials on his equipment. "Did you really believe your survival was entirely your own doing?"
I searched his face, trying to understand what he was getting at, but I soon looked away, unable to meet his piercing gaze. "I don't understand."
"Your little Ballpoint excursion would've been a guaranteed miserable failure had I not taken the initiative precaution of acquiring a reasonable quantity of their soldiers and repositioning their assigned coordinates to the current iteration."
It made no sense to me. "What?"
"'What', it's always 'what' with you," he muttered scornfully, stepping forwards. The torchlight from behind cast a shadow on his face, and it made him seem even more ominously dangerous than usual. "What it means," he said slowly, "is that a battalion of Ballpoint mercenaries is cleaning up the aboveground area to inhibit the necromancers from raising corpses. Baron Splint believes them to be nothing more than allied soldiers from a distant realm. Bedside fairy tales, honestly. Complete rubbish. Somehow he sees their advanced-tech suits and thinks 'foreign'. At any rate, in exchange for their assistance, they get to do a thorough sweep of the fortress, looking for Parasol agents – which I’ve carefully gotten out of the way."
"Okay..." I was beginning to understand. "I'll just keep my hood up, then, and nobody will notice."
"No." He turned back to what he was doing, walking away as he stirred the liquid in the little flask. It seemed that to him, at least, the conversation was over.
I didn't want it to be over. I
had to talk to Urist. I had to explain and apologize, to keep our friendship alive. I'd never had any real friends before, and I cherished what we had together. It might have been almost nothing to someone else, but for me, it was rare. An actual, real, true friendship was a very significant thing to me, and I would've done anything to keep from losing it.
"I helped you!" I protested, trying to convince him. "I risked my
life to help you."
Mr Frog either didn't notice or ignored my sense of urgency, but I knew him well enough to know I was making him angry with my persistence. "Do you believe I owe you compensation?"
"Yes! I did everything you wanted. Please," I tried to convince him. "They won't even know I'm there. I used to be a skulker - I'll keep to the shadows."
He swore under his breath. "Stupid, stupid girl. They
will know you're there. Moreover, despite my best efforts, you
did somehow manage a complete and utter miserable failure."
"But the bag -"
"- was filled with useless PEAs absolutely unrelated to my intentions," he finished for me with a glare.
"But yours wasn't there!!"
Mr Frog slammed empty the flask down on a table so hard that the glass cracked. He stormed over to me, all but grinding his teeth in anger and frustration. "Did you touch the empty space?"
I shrank back, and he seemed to tower over me. "...what?"
"Did you touch the empty space?" He repeated it slowly, sarcastically, as if I had trouble with the dwarven tongue. As he continued, his volume gradually escalated. "Did you forget everything you read about cloaking and image transference? It
was there. If you'd touched the 'empty' space, you would have felt it under your hand! You simply didn't
think!! Curse you and your kind!"
For a moment, he reminded me of my grandfather, and I cringed, afraid he would strike me. Instead, he turned away, muttering in disgust. "'Stupid' doesn't accurately describe your measure of unintelligence."
I stood gaping in frightened silence at his outburst. It hadn't ever occurred to me that it could've been invisible. It was all so new to me - I was having trouble grasping all the new ideas and keeping them straight in my mind. But could I really say that? He thought I was stupid already. On the other hand, was it really my fault I'd been born into a different universe?
"Return to your room," he ordered, controlling his voice carefully. "Leave me to my thoughts."
Back in my room, I sat down on the edge of the bed. I was somewhat ashamed that I'd failed Mr Frog again, but at the same time... if he'd just thought to explain things better, or point out beforehand that it might've been invisible... I would’ve known to look. He had a certain level of contempt for anyone with an "inferior intelligence"... like me. It wasn't my fault, though; I couldn't help not being as smart as he was. To him, it didn't matter. It simply
was, and it wasn't something I could be forgiven for. Now that I think about it, though... I can't see him ever forgiving someone at all. His heart seems twisted with hatred. There must've been something that was done to him or by him in the past to make him this way, but I don’t know what it could be.
It made me wonder... Was he actually the 'good guy'? If this was simply a story like a fairy tale, and not actually real life, would he be the good guy? Or was he the evil villain?
Was I even on the right side at all?
I laid back, resting my head on the little featherwood pillow, trying to redirect my thoughts. I thought over everything that had transpired between Urist and I - our little argument, my sarcastic comments, leaving through the portal, our heated insults.
Suddenly my eyes widened and I sat upright.
I'd told him I loved him. I couldn't believe it - I hadn't even realized I had at the time. I'd been so focused on everything else; it had just slipped out... I wondered if he'd heard, but soon tried to reassure myself that it wasn't possible. He
couldn't have heard me, right? I definitely hadn't heard myself... But the more I thought about it, the more it nagged at my heart and soul. I felt that he
had heard, and I wondered where he was. I wondered what he thought of it. A ray of hope struck me for a moment, like a beam of sunlight filtering through a darkened cave. I wondered if maybe he felt the same way, and maybe he cared about me too. I remembered how he'd taken my hand to try to calm me... His gentle touch with roughened hands...
But now I had no idea when I'd be able to see him again. Would his feelings fade, if they were even there? Would I even see him again at all?
~~~
The months rolled by uneventfully. Mr Frog seemed to have lost any use for me, other than menial tasks such as mixing flasks or crushing ingredients with a mortar and pestle. He rarely even allowed me to use his computer anymore; he seemed to have completely lost faith in my abilities. What had once been a paradise became a limbo, and I was trapped. The Ballpoint soldiers, while they carried out their duties and continued to clean the corpse fields on the blood plains with amazing speed (or so I was told), continued to comb the fortress, looking for me. I'd heard nothing from Urist, or Hans, and I didn't even know if they were still alive. I was afraid that Ballpoint might have captured them, but Mr Frog refused to "waste his time" going out of his way to gather information on them. As far as he was concerned, I was nothing but a failed experiment.
Actually... I'm probably lucky he’s kept me alive at all... though as time has passed, I
have become aware that he’s been slipping things into my food to test them on me. I'd become his testing cavy - his guinea pig.
One night, after battling a particularly bad stomachache from whatever he'd fed me, I had a nightmare that would haunt me to the end of my days... mainly because... it wasn't a nightmare at all. It was a memory.
~~~
I stood in the darkest depths of the fortress, near the forges Mr Frog had built during his reign as overseer. Dust drifted about, faintly visible in the dim torchlight. I couldn't see as well as the dwarves, and I was thankful Splint had installed extra torches for Fischer's sake. The air felt thick and heavy, and my skin prickled with heat from the open pits that dotted the floor. Though currently devoid of lava, it wouldn't be long until that had changed: the open pits were connected beneath me by a huge room. Draignean's plan was to flood it with magma so that Spearbreakers' smiths could build more magma forges. But that wasn't scheduled until tomorrow.
To my left, I heard a swirling noise, the air seeming to shimmer and ripple like gentle waves. I rushed over to the anomaly and pulled a pistol from my ragged blouse - my disguise - holding it at the ready. Moments later, a dwarf exited the open wormhole, looking about in surprise at the unexpected surroundings. He was garbed in traditional Ballpoint attire: dark gray clothing. I was behind him; I had the advantage. Stepping forwards, I grabbed his arm, pressing my weapon to his neck.
"Do you feel that? You know what this is," I said meaningfully as I disarmed him. "Put your hands up. Don't speak or try to get away."
He didn't speak, nor did he act fearful; he was a soldier. Both Parasol and Ballpoint were porting their agents into the young fortress, trying to get a firm foothold. It seemed odd, almost contrived, that Spearbreakers could become the epicenter of the Spawn plague, but it had. As a result, it was the central location of the war. My job was to eliminate threats as my employers twisted their wormhole exit points towards my location. It wasn't my job to ask why I was doing it.
I started forwards with the dwarf, keeping him steady as we walked in between the forges, in between the rows of open holes in the floor. I could tell he was watching for an opening where he could escape, and I didn't want to give him that opportunity.
Suddenly I threw my weight against him. With a shout, he stumbled and fell to the left, into one of the open pits. I stepped closer to the edge and looked down. A handful of upturned dwarven faces returned my gaze: assorted soldiers and agents, spies and scouts. They were Ballpoint's elite, their disguises perfect. I only knew who they were because of the orders of my employers.
"Are you going to let us out?" a woman in the room below asked me. "The floor down here is strangely hot..." She cuddled a little baby in her arms, wrapped in linens.
I didn't respond, instead walking to the far side of the room, and pulling a very conspicuous lever. I could hear gears grinding, turning; I could feel the weight of an entire floodgate beneath my hands as the lever slowly moved. More noises ensued, as I heard the Ballpoint agents begin to panic.
Emotionless, I walked back past the open pits, watching in satisfaction as magma slowly crept over the floor, pouring in from the magma sea beneath the raised floodgate.
"Let us out, I beg of ye!" an old gray-haired dwarf yelled. "We're going to die if y’ don’t!"
I reached the hole he stood beneath and looked down at him dispassionately. Most of the dwarves had already retreated to the far side of the room, and I shifted my gaze from him. He was too old and slow to escape, struggling with his cane as he was, and I needed to make sure the others didn't try.
A few of the agents began crying; others began to yell and shout in panic. I watched as one tried to build a makeshift barrier of loose stones, before he realized it was pointless. Still I stood silently above as a sentinel; a jailer; an executioner. This was my duty, and I felt calm.
To my right, a dwarf was climbing the smooth walls of one of the pits, struggling for finger grips. I walked slowly in that direction until I stood directly above him. He looked up at me pleadingly. "Please... We won't come back, I swear to you. Don't do this!"
I pointed my pistol at his head, but then moved it a few inches to the left. A bullet ripped through his shoulder, and he fell to the ground below, yelling in pain, but his cries were soon drowned out by the agonized screams of the aged dwarf, far to my left. I could see smoke beginning to rise from the pits.
Turning from the wounded man, I patrolled back between the holes, watching for anyone who attempted to escape. Many were too frightened to attempt it. Most couldn't even find a foothold.
A noise behind me caught my attention, and I turned on my heel, looking at the hand that was clawing its way over the edge. I stepped forwards briskly, peering into the face of the woman with the baby. Tears were in her eyes.
As she saw my cold stare, she seemed to understand her fate. "You're going to kill us all..." she said in horrified disbelief, her voice breaking as her eyes wandered. As I aimed my pistol, she looked back up at me. "Wait! Wait!" she pleaded, sobbing. "Please! Please wait!" The woman held up her little child. It couldn't have been more than a few months old. "Please, at least spare my baby! Take him,
please! He's done
nothing wrong - you don't have to kill him too!"
I looked at the child as it squirmed in the cloths, whimpering. For a moment I considered. The baby was well within my reach. The dwarven woman looked at me hopefully, desperately. "
Please... find it in your heart to save my little boy!"
With a distasteful, scornful frown, I placed the bottom of my shoe on the woman's face and kicked her back into the abyss. Her head cracked against the stone below, and she fell silent, blood pouring from her shattered skull. The little baby lay next to its mother, crying, as the magma inched steadily towards them. Moments later, their garments caught fire from the heat. As the magma enveloped them, a plume of smoke and the baby's brief but tortured screams filled the air. Satisfied, I turned away and continued my task.
For good measure, I began to pour buckets of lye into the openings atop the remaining dwarves, ignoring their cries as the flammable, corrosive liquid bit into their skin, blinding them if it happened to get into their eyes. The magma approached, and they spontaneously combusted, screaming in unbearable agony as the flames licked around them.
And I felt nothing for them.
I continued my patrol, vaguely glad that I was almost done. As I passed the halfway point between the far walls, a tiny voice spoke from the stairwell, twenty feet away: "What's happening?"
I spun and aimed my pistol at the intruder, only to see it was a little child, holding a little stuffed gorlak doll. "Leave," I ordered, lowering my weapon. My own voice sounded cruel and unfamiliar in my ears.
"I heard people yelling..." she said, looking me over as fear began to grip her features. "I thought someone was hurt..." Then she looked past me and saw the smoke-filled air, the roaring fires reaching upwards from the pits. Her eyes widened. "Are people burning?!" she asked in terror, panicked. She rushed forwards, crying, "We have to save them!!"
"Stop," I said, but the child didn't seem to hear, her shoes pattering against the ground as she passed me. "Stop!"
The little girl did so, looking up at my face. She was wearing a little smock embroidered with images of gems and artifacts. She couldn't have been older than four, and her golden hair had been carefully braided into little pigtails. Had I been anyone else, I would've thought her cute. Instead, I looked at her icily. "You shouldn't have come down here," I growled, aiming my weapon.
Her lip trembled, and a tear rolled down her cheek.
I pulled the trigger.
She screamed briefly, falling backwards as the bullet flew through her chest, ricocheting off the slate floor. She'd moved before I'd fired, and the bullet had missed her vital organs. The little child looked up at me, sobbing in pain and terror, trying to get away, blood pooling and smearing as she weakly scooted across the floor.
It didn't even cross my mind to say I was sorry, as I fired a second round between her eyes.
~~~
I awoke in the middle of the night, panting and sweating as I turned my light on, holding my head in my hands and trying to calm my rapid-beating heart. "It was all just a dream, all just a dream,” I repeated, trying to breathe deeply. “It was just a dream, just a dream." But as I tried, I remembered more of the nightmare -
parts of the nightmare I hadn't even dreamed. I could remember dragging the little girl's body to one of the pits before tossing it in, smoke curling towards the ceiling; I could remember kicking her little gorlak doll behind a cluster of barrels.
Suddenly I began to fear: what if it wasn't a dream at all, but a memory?
Panicked, I threw on my clothes, terrified, hardly remembering to grab my beanie before I rushed out of my room, through Mr Frog's laboratory, running blindly through the empty hallways to the stairs as tears cascaded down my cheeks. It
couldn't be true. It
couldn’t be. It
had to be just a dream. It felt like a memory, but how could I ever have done such a thing? How could I ever be so heartless, so cold? I
wasn't a murderer! I'd never killed
anyone!I finally reached the forge level, hundreds of feet below, and began moving barrels aside almost frantically, looking for the little gorlak doll. I thought that if I could prove to myself that it didn't exist, then I could calm myself - I could prove that none of it had been real. I just wanted something -
anything to assure me I'd never done those horrible, horrible things.
As I moved another empty barrel, I saw it - the little gorlak doll. I froze, staring at it in shock. It'd gathered dust with time, but it was the same as I'd seen in my dream.
My muscles seemed to give way, and I collapsed to the floor. Scooping the little doll up, I hugged it to my chest, and sobbed. I cried for all the people I’d murdered; I cried for the innocent little girl. I didn't even want to know what other fell things I'd done while I'd worked for Parasol, but the thought that I'd killed more than once tore into my soul.
I was a monster. My mind wasn't my own; my actions weren't my own; not even my
memories were my own, and how was I supposed to be able to tell how much I’d forgotten? I didn't know who I was anymore - I'd
never known who I was. How was I to even know that I didn't still wake up in the middle of the night to kill?
As I lay on my side, crying, curled up into a ball and holding the little stuffed toy, I wished I'd died many years before. I wished none of it had ever happened - the only good thing I could recall doing in my entire life was saving Talvi, and that had been largely by the hand of Joseph, my enemy. I didn’t know anything for sure anymore. I just wished I'd never been born.
Insanity would've been a blessing.
☆
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Topic: [34.11] Spearbreakers - It shudders and begins to move (Read 2281236 times)