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B is for Beloved
The old man had visitors today—bulletproof vest-wearing teenagers with machine guns. But there was no need to hide anything. Frankly, it was the opposite.
They arrived at the porch of the bungalow Atrego had given him as a medal, since they had run out of gold. Removing their clodhoppers, they dusted their feet on the welcome mat. Inside, it was something you would expect for a typical Southern divorced father’s home interior: A fridge chock-full of Coca-Cola, Jack Daniel’s, and Tupperware of frozen The Thing‘s flesh, sitting beside a cold, fireplace, while the only potential source of heat was a barbecue station at the back. Only the bookshelf was relatively clean, with dust only covering its corners. The rusting generator had been laid to rest there, the old man waiting for it to cremate itself.
They were there to receive blessings from him specifically, as he was the only person in their outpost that the Grim Reaper forgot about. He was at the ripe age of 127, yet he can still remember the days when Level 10, where they were, was merely a wheat wasteland. The teens—and even their superiors—would not even doubt him if he claimed he had transferred his dementia to Death himself. That was why they visited him, and not the other way around. Even with his disregard for his own home gifted by his superiors, perhaps as a sign of disrespect, he warded off any attempt to bring him to justice. Truthfully, though, he was just lazy. He was old and a little frail (he might need a cane to walk in a few decades), yes, but that did not mean he was not healthy, despite the constant flow of alcohol polluting his liver. Most importantly, he was anything but stressed—except when he spoke of his last day of service.
“Stress the biggest killer,” said the old man. “Ain’t a wrinkle on their mistresses’ skin, but the leaders, their beneficiaries, may as well be keepin’ them ridges on theirs.” Of course, when soldiers visit someone other than of their own blood, it is either to be dehumanized and killed—inside or out—or to be fed false hope of victory on the all-too-quiet battlefield. If their leaders can’t even stay loyal to their wives, why would they hesitate to cull their own soldiers like chicks? But things are different in the South, or at least Atrego’s imitation of it. The teenage soldiers had a hatred intertwined in their viscera, like a faulty wire in a contraption. It was not just one source. All they knew was to simply kill, and blast anyone who supports the structure of power, probably even teachers who make timetables for students.
All but one doubted that: A teenager, barely a freshman.
He looked as if he had just smelled alcohol for the first time, as he stepped forward with sweat on his cheeks and a trembling mouth. He said, not a request for a blessing of luck, nor an I shall be as great as you in the coming months, but a What if. What if we lose? If was not a word in the Atregoan language. The old man knew the word, however, as it was etched on his itching brain. It reminded him of an old memory. He had few wrinkles of his own, of course. Some even formed under his eye sockets as his skin flapped when he looked up. Gripping the young one's shoulder—a baby face, carrying the scent of youthful rebellion, shaped by his mother’s beatings and his father’s fleeting disappointment, mixed with the tang of mud and vermicast from playing around while strapped with guns—he repeated the word. If.
“‘If,’ huh? Well, I tell you what. I might be wise, but I never even lost one battle with Atregoans. I ain’t never feel that way, and I ain’t that good with words either. Can’t really say it to ya. What’s your name again?”
“It’s... I’m sorry, Sir, I forgot. But I’m Number 124.”
The teen—the man thought of him only as “boy”—scuffled for something. Then, he tugged at his uniform where the man had tapped his shoulder, pulling it aside to reveal the number stitched into the fabric. If I had no name, I might as well have the most common one, he thought. “But you can call me Mohammed. We got a lot of Mohammed’s in the infantry, Sir.”
“Yes, Muhammad, if that’s what you like. I guess that’s all fine. I know you’re, uh, one big of a rebel, aren’t ya?” The old man got up and tottered to the top of his fridge.
“Oh, should I help you with it, Sir?”
“No, it’s all fine. It’s the floorboards that need repair. I’ll do that by the end of the month... Never mind, I’d probably not. Anyways,,,” He smacked his lips as his hands, covered in a translucent dust ball. When it settled, it revealed a notebook you’d see beside laptops and plastic coffee cups in universities in the past. The teen looked as if he was uncovering the secret of the most efficient way to slay organized people systematically. His eyes, glimmering in the moody sunlight from beyond unkempt reality—where darkness loomed outside, and light existed only in the stark whiteness of the book’s glowing pages. “Ya look like you just saw love at first sight. Come on, have a seat, Muhammad,” he said, standing.
“Okay, Sir.” He stiffened his hand onto his gun, worried he might look like a rebel to others by simply sitting down.
“That gun can come off,” mumbled the old man.
“Sir?”
“It’s all fine here. Nobody’s attacking us. Ya can also drop off the ‘Sirs.’ Be afraid if ya must, but if you wanna leave in one piece, don’t make it too much.” He passed the book to the teen. “I assume you’re literate?”
“Yes. My parents taught me.”
“Well, my name’s over there.”
“Oh, I can name you even without looking! Forrest Rosenthal. Everybody knows you.”
“That’s correct, yes.”
People’s names (and numbers) are usually printed on business cards, not books, the boy thought. “Where’s your number then?”
“I like to keep mine tucked ‘way behind words, so it’s got some weight to it. Go on, flip the book if ya want.”
The anarchists arranged us in neat little rows and executed them with perfect order. So much for chaos.
They brought out the adults over to the left side of our base, where they’d be shot in the kitchen, while the adolescents were to the right where they were sent to many of the enemy’s bases. If they cried, however, they’d be shot instead to foreshadow what their next five to at most a decade of their made-short lives would look like, and it’d leave a trail of blood behind for them to walk on. I stood at the back of the line, a former soldier, with my firearms taken and in the hands of people using them to shoot the children. White and blending in with the brightly lit room. Why should I be kept at Grim Reaper’s grinder? If I had to guess, they were saving me for last so they could interrogate me. Either that, or they’d seen so many dark things they couldn’t distinguish between shades of white. Clarity and pureness. But, really, has anything ending -gate ever lead to anywhere good?
One of the Smiler-dressed soldiers turned back to look at us. He was pale himself, Caucasian, his empty black eyes locking onto mine. Dark as a powdered firework star. I’d just have enough time to imagine gouging them out. From his frown, I guessed he might’ve thought the same about me. United by the same starting letter and task (survive in the Backrooms), we were Aurielle and Atrego, both visible even through the smoke. When the haze settled, and I could finally breathe without dodging bullets and watching trails arc overhead, the scent hit me. Thick, black, like the void, but tinged with New Year’s Eve. A renewal, a small one. I was going to die anyway, so it was a nice breather. I glanced at the memento—a digital clock, stuck at thirteen. An hour past midnight.
It’d been hours since they ambushed us, and no help from others would come. It wasn’t like we weren’t near anyone either. Our base was near where you’d first end up upon entering this level, and it was nothing short of a fruitless cardio exercise to get here since you wouldn’t even break a sweat. Well, if it’s close, then surely, we’d have safety precautions. Yes, indeed. Our interior design was open plan, of course, as in many other levels, or maybe it was trying to cater to us Millennials’ needs. But we do have an elevator nearby, which we gave the hack-it-with-a-sledgehammer treatment, so if you brought in your friends with you or weighed more than the average person, the belt system would make a snap! noise like a gunshot, and you’d fall into the abyss. I’d say it was a more humiliating death than a simple headshot, and the Atregoans seemed to agree with me too. They’d planned out the floor space of our surroundings, probably, and came out of nowhere from the back door. It is what it is. Funny how we say that only when it isn’t what it was anymore.
All these are mere distractions, to be frank. But I do have a little glimmer of hope that some divine intervention would come, seeing as no ally of us was coming. They must have a reason why not to, you know? The white man from earlier still looked nervous, looking around the corners of rooms and making gestures with his hands as if he were in a physics exam, pinching his eyes too. Nervous, maybe? If I were him, I’d be ready to confess my sins to the angel arriving to get us, immediately. Ah... Never mind, I see now. His hand movements—he was calculating something. Maybe to distract himself from the fireworks of bullets just down the hall? I could see his reflection cast upon mine since his guns were tucked away at his back and pushed down his vest tightly, where hesitation or a scuffle could easily make him change his mind. Knowing his uniform, he’d probably seen things like people strapped and being butterflied by bayonets, or anything similar, so I’d say he had a PhD in ignoring things. So, now… What do I do, then? Think about something else. Fireworks, maybe?
On a related note, it’s funny too it brought me back to my grandma’s shophouse. Usually, on Chinese New Year, we were always told to roam around the house with our cousins, you know, freely. As a kid, things were more than today, even if you never had a growth spurt during puberty. So, it was basically like wandering through an infinite maze. But we had two rules: One, to only light fireworks outside in the streets; and two: under no circumstances did we spend too long inside the storage space under the first-floor staircase where the fireworks were stored. Thank you, Mama, because without that, I’d never have integrated into these 100-percent-rule-abiding societies. But Mama said the previous owner of the home, a real estate agent, disappeared. Grandma elaborated on it, too. “He turned into a paper effigy, and when it was burned, his spirit seeped into a firework. When it was lit and shot into the sky, he was blown away. High up, yes, up with the stars and gods, in heaven with his ancestors. But even among them, he missed his family. And though he watched over them, he could never return, never step foot in the shophouse again, never getting his last customer. That’s why we never light fireworks inside—his spirit might still be lingering, waiting for a way—”
“Abort mission. Abort mission. Kill all the remaining hostages,” the voice of a woman spoke, buried under distortions of corrupted signals. “Kill everyone.” She sounded like she was listing prices of homes on the contrary.
I tried to figure out what to do, and ways people spend their last moments. Breathing was too basic, so was begging for mercy. Praying? It’d never worked, but maybe today’s different. I closed my eyes… and then, nothing. No sight, no feeling—just random strokes of color appearing and disappearing. Static surrounded my vision. It had been that way since I lost God. The words leaving my mouth spread through the room without even an echo. If they couldn’t reach the walls, why would they ever reach a being from a place wholly divine, distant from the land of perfect corruption and sin?
Without a connection from the higher up, I was alone with myself. I could only see horizontally and not vertically. The process of climbing the ladder had come to an end. It’s been an endless cycle since the early days when I first learned to walk. I miss Mama and Grandma a lot. Yes, especially them. A cloud of memory formed above me—the only way up, high into the beyond. But I couldn’t climb the cloud to get higher up; my heart was too heavy, and it’d just drag me down over and over again. Sometimes, I wonder if the agent Mama talked about was really me, a reflection of myself, that she warned me about back when I could barely walk—let alone think. My feeble mind wouldn’t last long if it wandered that far. Playing with the stars, protected by omniscient gods, and comforted by pretty goddesses. Sounds like a dream, specifically one you’d make to keep people in line with your ideas. It was the opposite for me, though: Our positions mirrored. It was they looking down at me instead. I never done anything grave or beyond self-defense, yet I was exiled here.
My thoughts turned my surroundings into a silent bliss of moldy, moist air. The taste of algae wrapped around my tongue’s taste buds like it was the soggy carpet fibers. The gods fell in silence and refused to refute me. I stood up to see what was happening after feeling the absence of everyone’s nervous breaths. The woman’s voice was gone. There were only the unpainted, concrete walls with the flat slab ceiling hanging just low enough to muffle the echoes. Not a single soul. I hear breathing from the corner, however, from where the other man was earlier. My boots made some squirting sound, transporting me back to my disgusting and damp carpet days on Level 0. Oh, it was a trail of blood… And in the dark sheen of the blood, I saw my father’s reflection staring back at me…
The footsteps became silent as they stepped on the grass, crushing the innocent ladybugs into juice. You could hear it from even inside. The teen thought they were just stepping on dried leaves, but Forrest knew better. He pulled him back onto his side, delaying his deployment.
“C’mon, 124. Hurry up. You’d get killed if you don’t show up!” the older guys called from outside. Engines roared through the blissful wheat field.
“Go with them, Muhammad.”
“But what about this?” the teen grabbed a handful of the paper.
Forrest turned his head toward the bookshelf beside the generator. “Keep this with you.” He leaned in to Muhammad’s ear to whisper. “I’ve got more written down, don’t worry.”
“I can’t read it in battle,” he gasped. “You know that. And winning isn’t always certain.”
“Ain’t that the truth. But if you’re gonna live, live with purpose.” Forrest closed the book tight, and the air was clean without dust particles. “Keep this on ya, so you’ll know you got a reason to keep goin’. It’s the least I can do for ya.”
“They call these kinds of books ‘propaganda.’ I don’t know what it means, but I know it ain’t a thing to revere. What if I get caught with it?”
“Tell me it’s Forrest’s. They wouldn’t dare lay a hand on it.”
“Okay, Sir.”
“‘Sir?’“ he remarked.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Oh, don’t fuss over it. Just call me Forrest. It’s all good. Guess we’ll cross paths again some other time.”
“You promise I’ll live?”
“God ain’t gonna let you go if you’ve still got a reason to stick around.”
“What’s god?”
“Uh... You’ll feel His presence soon enough, Muhammad.”
For now, at least, the outside’s presence was the only one the teen could feel. “We’re staring the trucks now...”
“Dude, drag that whippersnapper over here,” a deeper voice said.
“I’ve got to go,” he struggled to speak. “It’s nice knowing you, friend. Bye, Forrest.”
“Goodbye, Muhammad—”
Footsteps from behind. Forrest’s gaze turned to what was behind the teen. He felt someone put their arm under his armpit, and he couldn’t get his legs to walk. “You have a death wish or what? We’ve already got enough wishing from Forrest. Don’t make us...” their scrambling and voices trickled away, as the only noise Forrest could hear were mud and insect’s flowing juices.
And there it was, the only remaining outside human in the room, taken from him. Alone, again. It was the first time Forrest had felt a human connection, rather than reduced to some symbiotic commensalism of getting wishes and getting mere black and green, plastic medals, reminding him of the days discarded limbs and torsos would line his trail. He stood up from his chair, the cushion staying compressed beneath him. He felt heavy—like he needed to shed some weight. His hand drifted to the bookshelf, toward a section of books all bound in the same color. He pulled one free. They held the same stories, the same words, though some had more scribbles than others, some with pages left blank. But if you flipped through enough, they all led to the same place. Just shy of 20,000 words—years of effort poured into climbing the fog of memory, reaching for the moments he shared with the other man. He’d had his recorder that day, but it had taken too long to swallow the words, so instead, he wrote them down, letting ink take the weight he couldn’t bear.
As always, it was the same story. The wind flipped the pages one by one, and within seconds, they landed where the teen had left off.
(Click the book below to continue)
~ December 2050.
66-year-old Forrest Rosenthal. Been living in solitary confinement, in a cozy Southern home built on my father’s dream. Yes, the story I’ve been writing about the Atregoan shootings—it ain’t mine. It’s someone else’s. Who is he? I don’t know, but all I can answer is the question “How?” How’s been doing? Well, he’s stuck at 27 years old, forever and ever, and that ain’t changing until the end of time.
This was my way of compensation, to write his story from his perspective… and I stopped, and told myself, "Someday, I oughta continue." But he told me it wasn’t (never mind). I’ll just tell you what you need to know now, lest I reckon it’d be hard to empathize with him. I believe it was the only thing he sought after, and I don’t want to waste that. Now, I’ve been feeling conflicted lately, on how I should continue.
The clock just struck three in the dead of night, yet the dusty windows still let a faint glow spill onto the wooden floorboards. It all started today. My doctor came by earlier at “sunset” and said that other than the fentanyl they've given me, it’d do my sleep-deprived mind some good to put my thoughts on paper. Even handed me this diary to get me started. The “someday,” the day I was gonna finally write the story, had passed on and on, the countless calendars I’ve ripped and made into cigarettes from the marijuana and tobacco they brought me, and now that Atrego’s shaped itself into a real military, I reckon there ain’t no better time to tell his story. No more putting it off, telling myself I ain’t grown enough for it yet, or that the wounds under my skin still ain’t healed from the past.
For John, the ladybug.
A bright silhouette flickered in the rusty stainless steel elevator’s purple reflections. Forrest tightened his grip on his submachine gun—magazine empty—one bullet in the chamber. He could make out a figure approaching.
One bullet too many, one side of his mind muttered. The other screamed—there are 29 too few!
The silhouette wasn’t clad in black, the color of his uniform. No, its presence was stark, gleaming. Smilers had haunted him too many times, and now, faced with the shining, white figure, the pool of blood went to the background, and it was only this figure that coiled dread in his heart. Pounding. Tighter. Pounding to let the blood out, to release the lead on the figure so he could breathe.
He looked behind him. A manifestation of H.K., shimmering in countless stars and nebulas, spewing blood out as it dug deep into his comrade’s still pulsating corpses. “I know you’re there,” he whispered to himself. “I’ve got a gun, man… One bullet, that’s it... And you have only one life, and believe me when I say, I ain’t gonna twitch any muscle when I take it away—!”
“You’re trapped, I know that. And I’m the only one here who’s got the password.”
“What’d you say, huh? Tryin’ to threaten me now? Real funny.”
“Just come here for a second. I’m trying to tell you something.”
“What’re you even gonna do, spin me a bedtime story and sing me a lullaby—?”
“Just come here.”
He turned toward the elevator again, his eyes locking onto the bright figure. Now, two faint, blurry lines extended from its torso: arms, raised in surrender, like a white flag, but only with its poles remaining. Desperate. Forrest stepped to the side and aimed so fast it felt like he’d teleported a few centimeters to the side. And there it was—the figure, standing still, hands lifted. Dressed like a Scandinavian sniper masquerading as a POW. Beneath the mask that covered his entire face, beneath the night-vision goggles, the two green dots hovering over a void, his shock and subtle disgust seeped through the fabric, sweating.
He paused for a second. “Your parents know you’re here…?”
“Parents?”
He looked like he blasts Swedish death metal and wore winter uniforms out of sheer spite, maybe to rebel against his parents, who took his devices away for a week.
“Kid, how old are ya?”
“I’m old enough to be your brother, dude. Be a skeptic all you’d like, but I’m definitely old enough to know time dilation isn’t somethin’ to joke about here.”
“Ya Southern, too? Or just plain old white?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Face the wall first. Hands up in the air. Answer me later.”
“No, that’s not the goal here.”
“What goal?”
“Are you trying to interrogate me?”
“What’d ya think we keep people alive for?”
“Look, dude, I know you kill people after you get that info. If you’re doing that to me, too, at least try to find an exit here. To which… You can’t—without me.”
“Go on, threaten me again. See what happens.” He gripped the gun tightly; it almost felt like at any moment his finger would slip and shoot a bullet right at his foot.
“Yeah, yeah, dare me, whatever. But it’s true, man. If it weren’t, I’d already have two more guns pointing at you right now.”
“So what, what’re ya trying to tell me?”
“Well, I don’t know, scout the area first for any exits, like a normal fucking person. You’ll be as good as your friends over there if you don’t.” Slight grunting of the breathing hosts of the stars, trying to escape their gravity without realizing how grave the situation is.
“I ain’t need none of that bullshit right now.” His mind wanted to look at where his breathing, dead friends lay, but his head stayed solid, nerves interlocked, and couldn’t move.
“Look, it is not that hard to look at corners.”
The gun felt soft in those hands again; his gloves melted from obsidian to black leather. But he still needed to be cautious because, every second, the soldier could whistle and raise his hand to call for an ambush. They took a step forward, then again, and the footsteps went from originally nervous and tense thumps to a smooth glide on the occasionally moist carpet. Their steps were in sync, now in harmony, in organized chaos. Although open plan, the level was still an office at the end of the day, and it didn’t take long for them to finish. The soldier seemed too… casual, humming a country song, turning to corners by jolting his body.
When Forrest glanced back, he saw the soldier emerging alone from the hole they had carved through the concrete. At first, his movements were smooth, almost gliding, but as he climbed down, each step turned into heavy thumps. Then, when he finally landed, the sound reverberated like the distant echo of a demonic beast, with the power of an archangel, traveling endlessly through the void before reaching him.
It was a short, beautiful moment that preceded a voidless nightmare. One where you don’t end up blank. “I have checked every room… I have checked every room…” Every tremble exhaling bellows. Steadily, his vision turned more purple, a white figure approaching—
“Are you all right?” the soldier said. “Have you found anything?”
No, Forrest thought. No. But how could that be possible? He struggled to speak, afraid to be wrong for the first time.
“I don’t really know, man, but I don’t think you look all right,” he replied to himself, then sighed. “I know what’s going on... No need to lie to me. I already know you haven’t found anything.”
Forrest turned to look at him and immediately turned away when the eye contact was a millisecond longer than he wanted it to be. He stepped forward, thumping, and stepped as hard as he could, slowly, to the elevator. The kneels almost cracked, the heel shattering, and the rusty steel would collapse if he hadn’t reached it moments sooner.
“That’s not going to work.”
“Then what will, huh?” he hollered, his voice shaking the room so hard that bits of the popcorn ceiling crumbled down. The veins in his neck bulged, ready to burst.
“Someone will get us out, I guess.”
“We’re surrounded!”
“Well, better luck next time…” the soldier sighed.
Forrest walked in circles. Thumping and thump, and then another thump and yet another thumping. And he was back where he’d stood. He started again, but this time, as he was halfway through the loop, the star manifestation instantaneously consumed the area of the carpet he’d just taken his feet out of.
“I know you want to kill me, man. Look at your face.”
“No shit, Scarface.”
“Hey, I mean, one of us is dying anyway. Why don’t you let that gun loose?”
“You’re gonna take my gun and run away to the elevator?”
“That gun’s almost as big as you. When I get on, it’ll collapse before I can even press the buttons.”
“If that’s whatcha want,” he said, ready to toss the gun for the hungry stars to eat.
“Wait, don’t just toss it.”
“For what? Ya told me to—”
“You know… One of us has to do it later.”
“You’re just messing around, aren’t you?”
“It’s human nature, man. Also, even if you ran out with it, you’re getting blasted when they see you with that gun. Heck, we don’t even know who’s up there waiting for us. It could be Atrego, and it could be Aurielle. Either way, they’re shooting whoever’s soul is in that elevator. They won’t care who it is, as long as there’s someone there.”
“Just keep it there for now.”
Hopelessness had exhausted them so much that the soldier wished the only thing he could worry about was getting executed in the kitchen. Forrest, however, recited some speeches of Paul Azen to see which was the most appropriate for a bright and exploding death, in case his last words had to be said today. However they decided to waste time; they knew they had to carry it in their arms like a newborn baby made of glass, thousands of them, tiny like marbles. Easy to break and lose. They didn’t know how to share it or the most effective way to spend it, before the soldier came up with an idea. “What’s your name?”
“What?”
“I know your number. 003. You’re an early bird?”
“No, no, they gave me a dead man’s uniform. Said it was too big for the previous guy, but now that I think about it, they probably lied about him being dead. And what’s with all the chitchat, huh?”
“You told me you were gonna interrogate me, so why not start it now, you know?”
“Get outta here with that shit. That’s long past now.”
“What else are we doing anyway? Russian roulette with an MP5? We can just… talk.” His face lit up brighter than the millions of stars, the dots on the purple clouds covering the goo. The rotten teeth revealed, but true happiness can’t be spoiled by anything demonic-looking, especially when paired with pure innocence.
“I don’t wanna. Just shut up and we’ll figure it out when it’s right under our soles.”
“We call you Atregoans ‘Toriis’—tough to crack like those gates on Level 666 and just as delusional and old as any traditionalists.”
“Is this an interrogation or a humiliation?”
“You lot do all this messed-up shit, so the least we can do is crack some jokes. Most of the time, the ones who’ve been through the worst laugh the most.”
“I ain’t laughing, though. Ya got something I can smoke? Weed, tobacco, all that—”
“Nah, man. You all did that ‘Empty ya pockets or we’ll empty our magazines’ stuff, remember? I should be the one asking, not you.”
Forrest didn’t know what to say and kept his head down, finally diminishing any chance he’d be tightening his grip on that gun again. He then sat down, and that sealed his fate if the soldier wanted to hold him hostage. He was still standing up, looking around with a smoky stench of hope in his iris, but overshadowed by its wetness reflecting the stars onto the center of his eye, his consciousness. Forrest, formerly disgusted by people with such hope, now saw what was burning inside him. His tolerance of the all-sunshine-and-rainbows child calmed further when he went to sit down, perhaps giving up and trying to mirror his position.
“Oh, by the way, I haven’t got your name yet,” the soldier said, eyes locking on Forrest’s face. Uneasiness, to tell an enemy more about yourself, but it was mere gobbledygook. The How to Do Genocide in Five Minutes, the core rulebooks given and followed by his comrades like a religious text… didn’t matter anymore.
It all came crashing down with one sentence. “Well, my name’s Forrest, with a double R.” Then nothing echoed anymore. It was just these two, trapped in a room, bearing nothing but the truest words they could say, and there’d be no shooting around lead anymore. Nothing to remind them of that, at least—now softened by clouds of memory, pillowing the walls, comforting.
“Your dad loves movies?”
He crawled into a corner where the H.K. manifestation was the furthest, though not too far from the soldier. Isolated, trapped within walls, in a fetal position, head drooped down. “Can’t say for sure right now, sorry ‘bout that. But yeah, he named me after Gump. Wanted me to be a sportsman—figured ‘Forrest’ was a lucky charm, make me… I don’t know, run faster. Baseball, football, track—down South, you gotta run. ‘Cept golf. That’s an old man’s sport.”
“Is it weird for you to be sitting down like this?”
“What?”
“You said you wanted to be running all your life. But, look at you right now. You’re sitting.”
“Now that ya say that, it does kinda sound depressing,” he whispered, more to himself than the soldier, to conceal that he’d never felt cozier than his bed on stormy Friday nights. The moss-covered concrete walls and peeling paint, ifted him to the sky and onto the pearly gates, unable to lie.
“You seem like a genuine person, Forrest.”
It sounded like a joke without buildup, a one-liner, which only deserved a chuckle. It was the only thing he could think of. “Sure,” he trailed, “but a minute ago ya were spittin’ about the horrendous shit we do.”
“I know you’re just trying to fit in. That’s what everybody does in this place. I mean, you have to fit in to survive.”
“Don’t hear that too often. But sometimes… things here ain’t all that different from home.” He finally looked up, and the soldier could see his genuine face.
“I get that sometimes, too.”
“What about yours? Your name. Ya always carry your papa’s name, no matter where ya at.”
“Yeah, it’s not too interesting. It’s Hudas, or Judah in English. Hudas Isuda.”
“That sounds like Judas’ name.”
“Yes, people call me that all the time. Just call me Jude. I’m not too keen on my father’s… Never mind.”
“Oh, you’re gonna betray me or what?” He then laughed. Judah smiled, blinded by the fact that he was talking to an Atregoan, which he’d acknowledged only a few minutes ago.
Looking at his feet, and noticing his boots were tighter than the interlocking carpet fibers, he said, “Just don’t call me that…” Then he turned to Forrest again. “All right, never mind. So, uh, how’d you get here?”
“Oh, the Backrooms?” Forrest’s concern rose for a second, but terminated as the question hit him, and he rose his voice. The friendliness sounded like he was going to start a banter soon. “Well, ya know, same kind of deal, just different stories—I got here the same way as everyone. Saw some weird-ass wall, got curious, and touched it. You?”
“Um, same here, I guess.”
“That’s your whole story? Just those two words? ‘Same here?’”
“Not exactly.”
“Oh, c’mon, don’t be boring now. One of us is gonna die anyway. There’s no need to hide anything anymore. It’s Opposite Hour. Like you and me.”
“We’re not ‘Opposites.’ I’d have to admit—we’re kind of the same here.”
Jude looked as surprised as if Kansas had flipped blue. “Are you really from Atrego?”
“Y’all don’t know we’re just made to wear this black uniform?”
“Yes, we do know. That’s been an open secret since you were still part of M.E.G.”
Forrest looked at Jude, sitting cross-legged and looking like a drunk, homeless man pretending to be a soldier, entertaining passersby who tossed him money and called it “bribes.” “How’d you end up like that, anyhow?”
“Well, I made a couple of bad choices. Of course, it first started when I entered.”
“Yours ain’t that bad. Ya end up with the better guys. Not necessarily moral, but better.”
“I don’t know about that. I could’ve just run further, and I would’ve never stumbled upon that alleyway.”
“What happened? You get wasted off some cheap booze?”
“No, I ran from home.”
“Ya sure? You talk way too proper for it.”
“No, no. It was… It was for something else. My father chased me down with… You know those big, Chinese cleavers you see in Kung Fu movies? Yes, that’s it. I can’t really explain it to you directly. I’m sorry.”
Forrest’s eyebrows furrowed by animal instincts. “Ya didn’t call the police?” he said.
“That’s the thing. I couldn’t. He… that man was a preacher—the damn chairman of our city’s biggest church. No one could wrap their head around it… how someone like him could do this. He stood up there, preaching about love, repentance, good deeds. But you know what he never did? Any of it. Not a damn word he said. It’s been 12 years. I moved on. Or at least, I thought I did. But maybe all this blood brought it back, made it rise to the surface, just to remind me. Again. Beat my mom. Threatened to kill us all…Never mind, never mind. Fuck. You know what’d be good right now?”
Silence.
“I… don’t know.”
“Look at that wall over there. You don’t have to if you don’t want to—I’m just trying to steady myself. It’s these walls. These stale, white walls, with that old yellow flower wallpaper… they’ve always had a way of settling me down. Almost like a mother, you know? Not a cage, not a prison—just something holding me safe. Like being inside an egg, right at the center of the yolk. I’m sorry if this is too much. How about you, man? What’s your story?”
Forrest gave a deep, deep stare, and the bloodied walls in the distance and the stars faded into black. It didn’t blur no more. It was just black. “Look, I’m not a psychiatrist, but you should calm down first before I talk. If that still hurts, tell me more. It’s no problem.”
“I miss my mother, really. That is all that’s left out. I’m so sorry…”
“I get it.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.” Forrest stood frozen, knowing that even the slightest movement might shatter the fragile silence. A subtle tension in the muscle would shatter it all.
After what felt like years, he found it—a story. Something to ground Jude, to draw a thread between them, and keep himself alive. “M-My dad, he…” He then swallowed hard, his throat tight. “Uh, he got stuck in an awful marriage. No amount of money could win him custody, not even being editor-in-chief. Happened when I was about your age, too. ’99. It was right before the new millennium. Felt like the world was about to end. Or just… going backward, like I got thrown a thousand years back when folks could execute whoever they wanted—and then there was the sickness. We were Christians, too, so that just made it harder. Far as I know, they’re still fighting it in court, even after all these years. But hell, I don’t think my suffering holds a candle to yours.”
“It doesn’t work like that. You got any friends at school?”
“Nah, I was just the hillbilly nobody wanted to sit with at lunch. Same deal in biology, music class—you name it,” he said with a chuckle. “Nah, I’m messing with ya. I think they just figured I’d already got friends and never thought to ask.”
Jude couldn’t help but smile.
It was heaven on Earth. It was where survival and necessary evil blend like golden palaces and clouds are found in two people who understand each other so well, they can turn their trauma into laughter. Back to the golden wallpapered rooms, Jude had traveled to get away from his father. By thinking of it now, the memories linger like clouds, their weight sinking onto the teary, brown carpet. But it didn’t bear the faint stench of mildew, no. It carries the scent of rain on fresh pandan leaves, when he’d sit on the dirty porch, while the water flowed to the sewers and sterilized it. The dirty porch where his friends would play marbles, pick up the leaves, and roll them to pretend to be cigarettes—in Chinese New Year, they’d hold sparklers in one hand while the other grabbed onto Jude’s grandma’s signature pandan rice cakes. He remembered all of them. “…I had friends to comfort me,” he continued. “They’d come to my house when I was younger. Then, as I got older, I snuck out instead. Not to party, drink, get girls, have a go with prostitutes, none of that. We did karaoke, drove around the city, and talked. We talked about everything, I guess. Music, video games, relationships… and my parents never noticed the sound since… You know how it is. Lots of screaming and pleading.”
“Losing a mother don’t compare to losing a marriage.”
“It’s not just a marriage, Forrest. She’s a deadbeat. Deadbeat. She’s dead to you, am I right?”
Forrest hesitates. He gazed upon the carpet, turning away from Jude. “Yeah, guess you could say that. But I don’t want ya thinking you’re outta luck or anything—especially with those Chinese New Year deals and all.”
“Oh, don’t worry. It’s out of season. Without the prayers and the red cards, bad luck will surely happen.”
“Ya miss those days?”
Jude smacked his lips before looking up at the ceiling. The buzzing, LED lights acted as the red lanterns blessing him with cold spring air.
“Everyone longs for the past, of course. Nostalgia is the wisest liar,” Jude exhaled
It was likely loud enough for Forrest to hear. Jude continued. “I’m telling you these things—these memories—so it won’t bother me again. It’s cathartic. It’s going to make you feel more alive than every drug ever… combined.”
Then Forrest shifted, changing his mind like colorful lights. “I don’t think feel that way. I just gotta say it to everyone, not just one person.
“Hey, this is your only chance. You know you can’t go back home. Everyone has accepted that, mostly when they run out of water, when wandering through Level 0, and whatever. Those yellow wallpapers eventually comfort you, and you feel like you’re in grandma’s kitchen again. It throws you back where you want to be.”
A pause.
“What else did you dream about?” Forrest asks. “How about exiting the Backrooms?”
Jude gave a stifled laugh, now struggling even to breathe. “Well, shit. Everything I just said was inspired by dreams.”
“What’d ya do if you somehow exit, then?”
“…I don’t know. I’m definitely not ready to visit my family’s graves yet. Maybe I’d make a good security guard—blend in with the trespassers, pretend I’m one of them, then boom! I jump out, shine my flashlight, and scare them. I’d want to at least have a little fun with my freedom and youthful appearance. But other than that, it’s not much different from what I do around here anyway. Even the security part is similar. How about you?”
“Um, well, visit my dad, of course.” Forrest dug up his old words. “He packed his bags for Alaska right after the divorce. My mom got the house. For all I know, that little place he owns in Anchorage might still be sitting there, empty. I could help him furnish it, teach him about guns, snipers, all the weaponry I learned from the Atregoans. But I still do feel guilty for leaving him behind.”
“Really? That’s it? Why don’t you hunt moose, sip some whiskey, and watch the mountains? You have everything there.”
“Yeah, sure. Maybe we’ll get a moose or two, mount the antlers on the wall. It’s a lot to take in, I tell you that.”
“You sound real exotic for a ‘hillbilly.’”
“And you—figured you’d have some grand plan after getting out, but all ya want is to be a security guard? Y’all have all those celebrations and traditions. It all looks like heaven came down on Earth to celebrate, but that’s all you’re aiming for?”
“Hm. All right, then. Let me think, man. What would I do after being a security guard?” he said, with a rose up tone and bouncing his head, mocking.
Forrest saw through him, but it wasn’t the time for confrontations. “Don’t think aloud; it’s just gonna distract you.”
“Alright, then—how about you first? What do you do after visiting your father?”
The only word that came to mind was heaven. “Go to church, pray…” he said. “Find some new folks in the community. Maybe help him write some of his headlines. That’s just how we do things down here—family and church. You oughta try it, too. I know you got a Catholic background. Just let go of what your dad did—he’s locked up for life. I forgave my mom for what she did, and honestly? Feels like that wound’s finally starting to heal.”
Jude looked behind him, paranoid. He wasn’t looking down at the star manifestation, however, but at the walls. Forrest turned at Jude’s direction again. “It’s not always like that, Forrest,” he said, before staring at him.
“Hm?”
“…It’s not always like that.”
Forrest felt shaken, as if the star manifestation itself was keeping the space stable from Jude’s striking words. “Well, how old were you again?”
“27.”
“Same as me.”
“Yes,” he assured him as if they were brothers finally seeing past the naughty things the little one had done. “But you spent the most time on Earth.”
“Maybe so. But when it comes to the Backrooms, you’re the wise one. Compared to you, I’m just a toddler learning to walk, and you’re Forrest Gump.”
“…Then why are you telling me this?”
“Because you’ve got to forgive everyone.”
Jude tightened his lips; the edge of his mouth closing in on each other, almost opening a gash. Then, as he opened it, it smacked. “If that’s mandatory, I’d rather kill myself.” He looked up at the ceiling and drew a line going downward.
“Nah, it’s a choice, Jude. Either ya drag that boulder with you for life, or ya find the key, break free, and carry only the weight of your wounded feet.”
“I don’t really know.”
“I’ll give ya time to think. But for me, it’s clear. My dad told me about this story he saw searching the archives, and had me look it up online. It came from further south, somewhere around Mexico or Central America. I forget exactly where, just that general area. Ya know where that is, right?”
“Yes.”
“Some left-leaning mayor in Central America got shot while giving a speech—somewhere around the Cold War, back when the CIA was planting agents there. Ya know why? He tore down a statue of some Spanish colonial leader who made the town rich. Thing is, he was an Indigenous man leading a half-white town..”
“I’ve never heard of him. What’s his name?”
“I think Juan. I only remember now ‘cause it’s similar to yours.”
“Hm, Juan. Why wasn’t he on the news?”
“Cold War stuff, probably.” Forrest let out a short chuckle, shaking his head. “Either way, they probably put up statues of him all over the country, just like they do with all Communist martyrs.”
“Sure… But okay. Look. I’m not a colonialist or anything, believe me here. But if the whole town was willing to keep a gold statue of an evil warlord, that meant they’d forgiven him. It’s the mayor who doesn’t. So, why does he get all the praise?”
“Well, if the mayor couldn’t forgive that Spaniard, he’d probably have gone after the whites too, by extension.”
Jude motioned toward the carnage ahead. “Of course you’d say that. Look at all those bodies right over there. You guys did that.”
The blinking stars covered the corpses like blankets, blood pouring but failing to show itself. Once H.K. begins to swallow liquid, it’s a good sign to fly, fly away as far as possible, far enough you forget the place had even existed. Either that, or you’ll be sentient for eternity, but trapped in your corpse. But it seemed they wouldn’t fly that far, perhaps only a few steps and a breath or two to make sure you know what fate has dawned upon you. And in a few minutes, it’ll only take one step before it consumes the floor entirely.
Forrest ran a hand through his hair, his jaw tightening. “We’re returning to that? Oh, come on.” It was the only way to make him smaller, to save a few milliseconds of that sweet, sweet breath of oxygen while your limbs are still there, before it’s cut off until you either suffocate yourself by holding your breath, or somehow a new level replaces the space your corpse occupied billions of years ago, and reduced to carpet dust and stardust.
It took a while for Jude to perfectly sum up his thoughts. Just three words. “No, I feel funny… I feel funny in the stomach thinking about it.”
“Well,” Forrest paused for a moment, “ya don’t truly forgive a person till ya can look ‘em in the eye and breathe lightly.”
Jude scoffed. “You, Atregoan, teaching me about forgiving? Yeah, sure. From the way you spoke earlier, I don’t think you’ve forgiven your mother.”
Forrest turned to the side and stared at blank space. “I might, and I mightn’t.” He shrugged. “But if you believe me, I’ll tell you it’s just the pain returning. Forgiving ain’t gonna change that, but it’s a starting point as I said before.” Then as he finished his sentence, he turned to Jude. “It’s ‘cause you were making eye contact with me before. Ya do know how to forgive someone, even if ya don’t want to admit it.”
Jude let out a sharp breath, trying not to punch the wall beside the elevator. It’d be blasphemy to do so. “It’s different for you, man. Morals have double standards; that’s just the way people are. Can’t expect everyone to be the same.”
Forrest tilted his head, watching him carefully. “I think you should calm down, or else you’re gonna forget that password. We’ve got, what, just enough space before this thing spreads twice?”
“What do you mean?”
“It spreads in blocks,” he said, before glancing at the ground. “Like a grid. Engulfs one area, then the next. Think of it like we’re standing on giant pixels, and it’s moving square by square.”
“I know you want to escape. That’s why you’re talking about forgiveness.”
Forrest’s lips pressed into a thin line. The stars were literally closing in, he thought. “It’d be an ‘of course’ if it weren’t for the fact that… That I’ve already decided on my last words.”
Jude’s voice lowered, with a bittersweet taste of belonging but still longing for someone. “What is it?”
“The Lord’s Prayer.”
His expression twisted, fists clenching. “Get that bullshit out of here. You already told me to forget about my father.”
He stood unwavering. “I never told ya to forget him—just to forgive.”
“You might empathize with me but remember—morals have double standards. You can’t judge me for my morals if you’ve got one yourself, especially with that black and green badge on your shoulder.”
Eyes narrowed. “You’re oversimplifying. That doesn’t mean we can’t find a middle ground.”
“Like how?” Jude scoffed.
“We tried to find an exit earlier, even when I was about to shoot you. Why? Because we had a common goal.”
“That was before. This is now.”
“Jude, no matter what you think, don’t be pessimistic. That won’t getcha anywhere. In this case, it’ll just make dying worse.” Forrest took a step closer. “And besides, you’ve still got me here to leave alone.”
Jude let out a breath, glancing away. “I was an optimist earlier. Didn’t work.”
“You won’t get hurt trying.”
“…You want me to try the password, then?”
Jude walked to the elevator and raised his hand. Only Forrest was watching, but it felt like every bump on the wall, every speck of popcorn on the ceiling, had turned into an eye, staring him down. He pressed the metal keypad—someone had ripped it from an elevator in the outside world and brought it here. He was hesitant at first, but then his fingers traced the numbers, carefully. One, two, three… Then the LED display flickered and went blank. The only thing left of the elevator was his own rusty reflection.
Jude turned to Forrest, just one among the thousands of unseen eyes. “It… It doesn’t work.”
Forrest’s expression tightened. “What do you mean it doesn’t work?”
“I… I forgot.” Jude’s stomach twisted.
“Try it again!”
“Well, I guess it’s official now. One of us has to die for the other.”
“No. There has to be another way.”
“Isn’t this the perfect moment to be pessimistic? The proof’s right in front of you. Can’t deny it anymore.”
“We could climb the elevator ropes.”
“They’ll snap before you even get halfway up.”
Forrest exhaled sweet breaths of a soon-to-be death. But there was no sweet thing, nor was there a release of death—only the stale, bitter air of eternity. “Guess I should start reciting The Lord’s Prayer now.” He wasn’t so sure, though—and in that uncertainty, he found the only sweet relief he could grasp: a fleeting sense of inferiority. “Ya mind?”
“Not really.” Jude shrugged. “My father— I mean, no one. No one,” he stuttered. “He might be punished, thrown out like garbage, but I still don’t feel comfortable about it. Not that it matters—I’ll probably be long gone before you even get to ‘Amen.’”
Forrest stiffened. “What do you mean?”
“You talked about finding in-betweens, right? How do we have to look for them? You said we should help each other, just like earlier. So let’s have another conversation, like before. Maybe we’ll find one.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know. Let’s start with what we do here.”
Forrest hesitated for a moment, scoffed, and inhaled as much air through his mouth. “The… The Backrooms? Well, ya know… nothing much. I guess we had a few chit-chats here and there, but we… we were never friends.” He then let go of the air and escaped his own reluctance. “Conversations only served one purpose—so we’d remember a face and a voice. In case they got… killed, or whatever. Or committed treason. Or pissed off the wrong leader,.” He let out a dry laugh. “That’s about it.”
Jude nodded slowly and looked in the direction of the kitchen. Its beautifully painted bloody walls now covered in harmony by the stars. “It’s not much different, to tell you the truth. I never really talked to anyone, though. I was always on guard duty, stuck at the base. No small talk, no distractions. You might think, ‘Oh, I can’t imagine how boring that is,’ but it wasn’t about boredom. We did it so no one could sneak up on us.” His fingers curled into a fist. “And look what happened.”
Forrest knew a dead man was speaking, but he kept it to himself. Saying it out loud would only deepen the pain—the kind that lingers even after death, when the stars devour one of their own.
“You’ve been here… 12 years?” he said, pointing his head at the dimly lit expanse. The lights flickered. “And ya never talked to anyone?” Forrest then wiped the sweat from his brow, eyes scanning the dimly lit expanse.
“There was one person,” Jude said. “You.”
Forrest scoffed, shifting his stance. “That’s a bit of an overstatement. Ya could’ve bumped into someone and said sorry. That’d count as talking.”
Jude let out a dry chuckle, shaking his head. “Nah, I’ve never really had a real one.” He stood up and faced the elevator, looking away from Forrest. “Forrest. I forgave you. But not my father.” Jude’s fingers twitched, tightening into a fist before relaxing again. “You killed those people—women, children. But not my father. And you two are practically the same.”
Forrest felt gripped around his body, as if he was being tightened like his weapon sitting innocently. A child, on the carpet. “Why?”
“I don’t know. Double standards, maybe. Or you’re not that kind of person.” He exhaled sharply, shoulders rising and falling. “Maybe because you took the mask off for me, and he never did. Not to me, not to my mom, not to anyone.”
Forrest stepped forward, boots scraping against the dust-covered floor. “Ya don’t care about your fellow comrades?”
The man glanced at the bodies strewn around them, eyes unfocused. “Look at them. They look like spots on a ladybug. The corpses, polka dots. The blood, red wings.”
Forrest looked, but all he saw were the jagged humps of the star manifestation pushing through the ground. “I don’t see anything,” he muttered.
“It was there before. I saw it. It was clear as day. I thought of my father, and only him.”
Forrest hesitated. “Doesn’t mean I can’t imagine it.”
The man turned to him, eyes heavy with something unreadable. Then, stepping closer, he placed a hand on Forrest’s shoulder. “You do care about people, Forrest. Hold onto that. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
“I had the gun aimed at you earlier. More than once. How the hell do you have the guts to stand there like that?”
“The feeling in my gut told me to. You should pick up that gun now.”
Forrest blinked. “What?”
“Pick it up.”
“What do ya want me to do?”
Jude didn’t hesitate. “I trust you with it.”
Forrest’s fingers twitched around the grip. “No, Jude. We’ve got to find another way.”
Jude sighed, then stepped past him, moving toward the edge of the elevator. “All right, you know what? Come here for a second.”
Forrest’s hands trembled, the gun’s weight barely held in his grip. His legs felt like they could buckle at any moment. The pain of standing, of deciding, was unbearable.
Jude didn’t turn around. “What did you say you’d do when you got out of the Backrooms?”
“Uh…” All Forrest could think was to repeat what he’d said, as those were the words that didn’t get him killed, but the ones that continued a conversation, one in Heaven on Earth. “Go to church and visit my dad?”
Jude finally glanced back. “And after that? What then?”
His aorta clogged from the uncomfortableness. Uneasiness and unshakableness, his mind trailing with words. But a few words were enough to resist chaos and turn it into a pièce de résistance. “I guess... Starting a charity. I can write the headlines, too. He’s been... dreaming. Dreaming of starting a foundation after the divorce. I’d guess it probably made him think money didn’t matter.”
“Charity? You’re giving things to the needy?”
“Yeah, basically…” Forrest struggled to speak. “Why’re you asking me now?”
“Well, then go give ‘em that. Go give ‘em more.”
“What?”
“You’ve given me more than enough for what I deserved. Thank you, Forrest. Forrest Rosenthal.”
Jude holding the gun. The hole in the muzzle, half a coin wide, with the stark void beneath it.
“What’re you—”
He stepped forward, his footsteps echoing like heavy knocks against the floor, even in his comfortable boots and the cushioning carpet. The sound made him whirl around, arms shooting up as high as they could, nearly brushing the ceiling.
“Go face that wall, Forrest. Go near the elevator.” Jude went to the side. A beeping sound. What sounded like two metal sheets rubbing each other. Elevator doors opened.
“Wait, wait. Hold on! Just let me say my last— Okay, you know what, never mind! How about that thing you told me? The security job—you still want that, right? Just come here for a second, we can talk about what you’re doing right now—”
Jude told him to turn around. “Forrest, you don’t get it.” Jude’s voice wavered, but his resolve was unshaken. “Forrest. This thought... It isn’t from dreams. It’s been spinning around my mind like hanging chains for years. Sometimes, I feel like… the Backrooms were paradise. Fair. Safer than the monsters waiting for me out there.”
Forrest stepped forward. “What? Wait—hold on!”
Jude smiled—distant, resigned. “Fly away, Forrest. The Backrooms… it ain’t your place. The real world’s fairer to you. So fly there. Fly, fly, fly…”
“No, Jude!”
“I just need one thing from you… Please write a good story for me. From my perspective, if you can. But I won’t force you. Do it when you leave, when you’re safe, when you can.”
Jude lunged forward. A sharp, forceful poke on Forrest’s stomach, like a bayonet’s thrust. But its blade was the muzzle of the machine gun he had once gripped so tightly. Black as night, yet now whiter than white, as if it could cleanse rather than kill. The sheer force of the blow sent him stumbling forward, crashing onto the rusty, jagged floor of the elevator. The metal groaned beneath him, sand and grit biting into his skin.
Then—the lurch. The elevator shot upward.
Yet the stars seemed to sink, dragging a still-breathing Jude with them, without the smell or voice of death.
Forrest’s hands trembled, an animal desperation seizing him, to be wild, to be full of jungle. He wanted to rip apart the steel bars, claw through the narrowing space, reach down and pull Jude back—if there was anything left to save. Just one carpet fiber where he’d stood was enough for him to find Jude.
“Jude!”
The metal groaned, a tortured wail echoing through the shaft. Then— a gunshot.
It rang out from below, sharp and distant, like a knock on heaven’s door.
He died belonging. Beloved.
His body wasn’t just a black spot on a ladybug’s wings.
He was the entirety. He was not consumed.
And to die for one man;
It is to die for mankind.
And by dying in a utopia...
The ladybug had joined the stars.
- First section's background image (Unsplash License), edited by me: "Red flares at night photo" by David Garry.
- Quote header's background image (CC0 / Public Domain), edited by me: "The free high-resolution photo of liquid, flower, wet, red, color, colorful, close, painting, human body, sketch, drawing, image, organ, water games, acrylic paint, figure drawing" by an unknown author.
- Shotgun line drawing (CC BY-NC 3.0), edited by me: "Smg" by Emperor-CatVI.
- Poem background image (CC BY 3.0): "abstract fireworks" by silvervoyager.
- Arrow piercing heart line drawing (CC0 / Public Domain and CC BY 2.5, respectively), both edited by me: "Public domain stock image. Arrow arrows heart, emotions." by an unknown author, and "Heart anterior exterior view" by Patrick J. Lynch.
- First main image (Unsplash License), edited by me: "green trees in the middle on desert under clouds" by Anton Sulsky.
- Second main image (CC BY 2.0), edited by me: "Full Scale Exercise : Hostage Scenario - U.S. Army Garrison Humphreys, South Korea - 20 June 2012" by USAG- Humphreys.
- Atrego logo (CC BY-SA, presumably), edited by me: Realization of Utopia by 20TomO7.
- Third main image (CC BY 2.0), edited by me: "Enter the Matrix" by Steve Jurvetson.
- Book collapsible images (CC0 / Public Domain), edited by me: "Book of Hours, Use of Noyon" by an unknown author.
- Second section's background image (Unsplash License), edited by me: "liquor bottles on white and brown wooden cabinet" by Eaters Collective, "calendar" by Kiryl, and "assorted-color bottle lot on shelf" by Adam Wilson.
- Fourth main image (CC0 / Public Domain), edited by me: "Abandoned farm home in whe, at field near Gould, Oklahoma by Collection - Dorothea Lange, FSA, HD.
- Fifth main image (CC0 / Public Domain and CC BY 2.0, respectively): "High Valley Work Station, Small Bungalow, Smiths Ferry, Valley County, ID" by Historic American Buildings Survey, and "Kitchen Fireplace" by Boston Public Library.
| Canons | Winter's Butterfly |
|---|---|
| Levels | Megalophobia │ A Child's Abnormality │ White Torture │ Roads to Abyss │ Haphazard Remnants │ Saturation │ Terror Basins │ Innocent Ball Pit │ Day Zero │ Vitrum Madness │ The Last Snow │ The Unit │ Antiquated Perpetuity │ Indigence │ Niagara of Iron(ic) Fists: The Contra-Pulp Fiction Theme, Vol. I & Vol. II │ Ain't All Blood Red │ Pipe Dreams │ The Worm in the Fruit │ Vienesse Sunday │ Old Mister Staircase │ Thalassophobia │ Toko Kelontong
|
| Entities | Mandela Disease │ The Death Locomotive │ Rainbows │ Count the Stars! │ The Thing on Level 7 |
| Tales | The Temporal Yellow │ The Ladybug Heart of a Génocidaire |
| Joke | Em Dash Island │ Meggies |