You might have heard already, but Kal and Henry came back to Austin and now we've got ourselves a little crusader group that goes by the name of Operation Wintergreen. There's not a whole lot to say about it. We're heading off to Seattle, mostly because it's as good a place as any since we're definitely not going to be able to hide, and the place has a neat Goth scene from what I hear. No one else had any bright ideas, so Seattle was decided upon. And there we'll probably die. At least the weather matches the mood. And there's coffee. I do love coffee.
Love Under Will
93/93
Previous/Next
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
The Tower of Babylon Rises
First of all, I apologize for the prolonged silence. It’s probably been like two weeks since I last posted or some such, and in all honesty most of it was spent in a drug-induced haze. It’s not something I’m especially proud of, but between that and some other shit that’s been going down I’ve not had much time to deal with blogger. Because seriously, it’s a fucking blog. In the greater scheme of things, it’s really not all that important beyond recording my story for the sake of posterity. Anyways, I’m here now so I guess I’ll wrap up the op Arkady and I did to save Babs.
When I last left off, Arkady and I had received a message from Javert telling us where he’d taken Babs. We checked the place out before hand. It was a fancy North Austin lake home in a gated community and everything. Place looked pretty boring on the outside. No armed proxies or anything like that. Javert seemed to be acting alone. Of course, if there’s anything I’ve learned during this bizarre fairytale of a life I’ve been leading, it’s never to trust appearances. Always be open to new, unpleasant possibilities.
The night before I charged a small ritual dagger of mine and brought a couple spell components with me. Nothing too big or fancy, as it all had to fit in my coat pockets. We decided that I would be the one to meet up with Javert while Arkady went after Babs and rescued her. I’ve never actually met Javert in person before, not really. This one-on-one would be a first, and I was curious. I’d love to meet the man who’d fucked over one of the few people I’d permitted myself to still care about.
We made it there pretty fast. I got out of the car and walked up to the wooden door. Arkady’s half of the op was up to him, so I had no idea what he was going to do. The front door to the big-ass house was cracked open, so I stepped inside. The place was barely decorated. Plain beige walls, with no paintings or accessories. I half-expected those fake suits of armor lining the hallways and red velvet carpet neatly laid down on the floor. No such luck.
The hallway I’d stepped into had rooms lined up on the left and right with no doors whatsoever. The end of the hallway opened up into what I guessed was a living room. The setup was great for an ambush I suppose, but I had a strange feeling there wasn’t one. Historically Javert waited for Arkady so they could have some dramatic and pretentious dialogue, so odds were good he hadn't set any traps.
The last door on the right had a staircase that led up to the second floor of the house. I heard a piano playing at the top, something fancy like Mozart or Brahms. Three guesses as to who that is, kids. And the first two don’t count. I checked my jacket for my dagger, quartz crystal, and vial of absinthe before making my way up the stairs. And no, the last one isn’t for comfort. Wormwood is used a lot in traditional witchcraft, and that happens to be the chief ingredient of that sweet, delicious nectar. I felt sad at having to use it in such a manner, but Babs’ life was on the line.
The stairs led up to a landing on the second floor. It was every bit as dull as the first, except for one noticeable exception. The rooms were laid out with that painter plastic stuff on the floor. Proxies aren’t renowned for their painting skills, so that probably meant this was an entire floor of Dexter-esque kill rooms. Lovely. I made a mental note to burn this place to the fucking ground once I was done here, but given Arkady and I’s record with Javert encounters that was almost a given. I followed the sound of music, which was gradually getting louder and louder as I navigated through the rooms and hallways.
So after a couple of minutes of walking I found myself standing quietly outside the room where the music was coming from. It was sort of nerve-wracking. I’m no good at physical combat, and I wasn’t sure how Javert would react. He was almost certainly expecting Arkady. Would he flip a shit when a surly, 115 pound Goth kid strode arrogantly through the door instead of his boytoy bibliophile? Would he be amused?
I stood there for a good five minutes running stupid questions through my head before deciding was thinking too much. I checked the watch. It was two minutes after the time written on the note. I couldn’t wait any longer. I reached into my jacket pocket for my quartz crystal and focused on the image of my Heavenly Guardian Angel. I needed strength. Closing my eyes and imagining the blue-skinned creature with glowing wings filled me with a sense of warmth and certainty about what I was doing. I put the crystal back in my pocket, exhaled slowly, and stepped into the room.
The room here was also bare. There was a raised landing where Javert sat at a large piano, playing slowly. I won’t lie, I half expected a small table with dinner for two and some romantic candle lighting. I was beginning to think these Slenderfucks blew their budget on the location and the grand piano without realizing they had nothing left for basic furniture. Javert looked up at me and actually raised an eyebrow in genuine surprise.
Javert: “Setoth? What an interesting turn of events.”
Me: “Yeah, sorry Arkady won’t be here to engage with you in intellectual masturbation. You’ll have to settle with me.”
Javert smiled weakly. I don’t think he enjoyed hearing his favorite pastime described with vulgar sexual overtones. He and Arkady did have a disturbing amount of things in common.
Javert: “Oh, I think I can make some accommodations.”
Without looking down the keys, he started playing Toccata in Fugue [link]. How amicable of him. In fact, it would have come off as rather kind of him had it not been for that whole “kidnapping-my-sex-buddy-with-intent-to-murder-her” thing.
Javert: “Well, that’s quite enough of that.”
Javert got up from the piano and stepped down from the landing.
Javert: “In a way, Setoth, I’m glad you’re here. It gives us a chance to talk.”
I kept my eye on him wearily, but my hands were at my sides. The last thing I wanted was him knowing about my dagger.
Javert: “I enjoy my time with Arkady. He is unique and interesting, but blind to His Light. This story of ours will end with his death because he is stubborn and refuses to see. But you…you, Setoth, have potential.”
Me: “Lemme guess. You’re going to give me the choice you never had,” I shot back.
Javert: “You’ve wasted your life in the pursuit of physical joy and debauchery. You’ve been chasing your own tail and for what? Another night, another drug, another nameless boy or girl to share your bed with. And when you die, what will they write on your tombstone? Here lies Damien, a loving and well-endowed whore?”
Me: “God I hope someone writes that on my tombstone.”
Javert: “Hide behind your derisive sarcasm all you like, but the truth is there even if you do not face it. You were drawn to him. Now, deep down inside, your very soul aches for him. I can see it in your eyes. You slave over your books and write your sigils, you study him and think about him, his nature, his work. It consumes you. You can pretend that your interest in him is one born of survival, but we both know better than that. Your death will mark the end of a meaningless life whose accomplishments will amount to naught, to fade away in the passage of time. Or you can accept His Light and join--”
He didn’t get to finish. Outside we heard the screeching of tires on asphalt, and then a loud crash against the building’s walls. The floor shook and trembled from the force of Arkady’s assault.
Me: “Sorry, you were saying?”
Javert looked at me. It was interesting, his face barely changed and yet his expression was completely different, slightly indignant like some form of misguided pity. He shook his head.
Javert: “So you are as hopeless as that slut you want to save?”
Me: “I suppose that’s a question of perspective. You seem to be under the misguided impression that dying destroys everything I’ve accomplished. But death is just putting the bow on a pretty package. Kill me now or kill me later, everything I’ve done has happened and cannot be erased. You can’t undo my past. Every second I live, every second I make something new or experience a new sensation, I have another accomplishment to add to a fulfilling life. And what do you two have? You kill people? Everyone dies. You’ve done nothing, added nothing. The infinite potential of the Slenderman, and it’s wasted on accomplishing the inevitable without building anything new. That’s cowardice, fear of failure. Fear that what you build may one day crumble. I pity you and your God.”
I didn’t bother really looking back on him after I said my piece. I ran. Back through the doorway and into the hallway where, as I more or less expected, I saw the proxies running towards me. Two of them in cheap dime store masks. I appreciated the Bill Clinton mask, and the other was a tacky drama mask. I didn’t pay too much attention to detail on anything else, just skidded to a halt. My cellphone fell out of my pocket, but had no time to pick it up. Instead I took maybe two steps back to the nearest door and slammed it shut. As soon as I locked it I felt a heavy weight smash into the door and bounce back. They were trying to break the damn door down.
With every subsequent hit, the door gave way just a little bit more. I had to think fast. The room I was in was a bathroom, kinda cramped which would have made any fight a close-quarters one. I’m not good at fighting, especially not close-quarters. But thankfully it seems the mirrors in the bathrooms came preinstalled. I did have one option. I could turn that into a Black Mirror.
I pulled out the dagger and the absinthe. I dipped the dagger into the greenish liquid and applied it to the tip and sharp end of the knife. The nice thing about the absinthe was that it was 140 proof, so the alcohol would treat the wound while the wormwood mixed with my blood. It would be a potent enough combo to make up for the lack of…well…everything else you need to normally do this rite. It was a temporary fix, but I only needed the enchantment up for a couple of minutes. Seconds, even.
I ran the dagger across my left palm. The blood started to flow freely and mingle with the deep green of the absinthe. I traced Astaroth’s Goetic Sigil as best as I could on such short notice sans the dots on each point, but that was all the time I had. The door smashed down and both the proxy goons stumbled in. They looked up at me, at the Sigil written in blood on the window, and then back at each other before taking a cautionary step back.
“Sorry fuckers. No dice.”
I drove the dagger into the heart of the sigil. Only instead of shattering, the whole blade up to the hilt just sort of went into the mirror, as if the glass was the surface of some body of water. The whole thing went black. I chanted out the Key to the Abyss and activated the Black Mirror.
And it comes to my realization now that most of you probably don’t know what a Black Mirror is. The name is a bit ominous, but it is actually nowhere near as scary as it sounds. All it does is allow a regular mirror to reflect what is present in the Astral Plane. Auras will show up, space and time will be distorted, and all manner of bizarre effects show up and are reflected on the surface of said mirror.
Course, I took it one step further. Astaroth’s invocation along with a Black Mirror doesn’t just reflect what’s happening, it actually causes the astral plane to completely reveal itself over the span of a good 30 feet. The two planes appear to overlap to any viewers within this area. And to two proxies who have never stepped foot into the plane, that’s gotta be one terrifying spectacle. But there were other changes I hadn’t counted upon either. As the astral plane bled over with our own I saw what affect Slenderman’s minions (or maybe the beast itself) had wrought on this domain.
Eyes. Fucking. Everywhere.
The walls were a disgusting, putrescent, glimmering black and spotted over with enormous eyes, each perhaps 3 feet wide, with gigantic black pupils and nothing more. The unblinking orbs gazed down at us from above and around us. The proxies stared up dumbfounded and trembling. The room had become elongated and twisted up like a Hellish kaleidoscope. I ran up the incline back into the hallway, which was stretched thin. The whole thing looked four times as long but perhaps two feet wide at the most, which put me far too disgustingly close to those fucking eyes. There I stood as every pupil in the hallway turned to stare at me. Shaking, I took a few nervous steps down the hallway towards where I figured I had dropped my cellphone.
Remember how I said my invocation was sloppy and quickly done, and that the Black Mirror probably wouldn’t last? Thank the Gods it didn’t.
From the bathroom I heard a loud explosion, like glass shattering. Suddenly the floor shifted and changed as space and time reasserted itself against the magick of Astaroth’s invocation. The hallway became linear once more and the dreaded eyes sunk slowly into the black filth that had coated the walls. As they did, the blackness started to recede. It gradually merged back into the walls with a sickeningly organic sound, like flesh being pushed through steel grating.
For a moment, everything was peaceful. I picked up my cellphone. The cover was flipped open, so someone had to have used it. I checked the phone logs. The caller had dialed Babs phone, which had been repurposed for Arkady. Yeah, sounds like it was Javert. I hit redial.
Everything got staticky. I was pretty sure it wasn’t the Black Mirror. The spell should have mostly worn off. But I could barely hear Arkady.
Me: “YOU THERE? ARKADY, IT’S ME SETOTH!”
Arkady: “Yeah [static]…here.
Me: “Where the fuck are you?”
Arkady: “Not far……run……Slender……”
FUCKING STATIC!
Me: “Shit! Is Babs alright?
Arkady: “She’s fine now……Slendy……finished killing me……”
Me: “God dammit! Get the fuck out of there!”
Arkady: “Leave? ……miss fun? Not a chance!”
Me: “You fucking idiot! You will not jeopardize this mission for your massive ego!” I screamed at him. That stupid fuck. But I knew yelling wasn’t going to change a fucking thing. I had to think fast.
Me: “Arkady, if you die now, how will you kill Javert?”
There was a pause on the other side. Maybe he hadn’t heard me. Maybe he had already stupidly charged to his death. But if he had heard me, there was no way he’d pass off this chance. Especially if I was the last person to talk to Javert. There was one last detail before I’d cut off the cell.
Me: “Don’t you fucking dare use Babs as bait so you can escape!”
I shut off the cellphone. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. I had to figure out where the fuck they were. But before I could reorient myself to figure out how to leave this fucking house, I watched as one of the two proxies stumbled out of the bathroom. The one who had the Clinton mask on looked like the exploding mirror had sent shards flying into him. Pieces of jagged glass had impaled him across different parts of his body. Blood was pouring out of his wounds, leaving a gory trail behind him. He turned to look at me, then down at himself and started laughing like a goddamn lunatic.
“Ooooh, a half-dead psychopath. How original,” I taunted. Because seriously, on the list of my problems that’s gotten about as nerve-wracking as finding time to do my laundry. But of course, there was a catch.
There’s always a catch.
The proxy raised a weak hand and gripped the collar of his shirt. I pulled out my dagger, ready to plunge the damn thing into his chest and rid myself of another fucking menace. His other hand gripped another fold and tore upward, ripping the shirt in two. Amidst the streams of crimson streaking down his chest, I saw black bruises form and reform under his skin. The purple and black traveled upward and across his chest, settling for his below his left collarbone. And then the skin split open, revealing one of those sickening white eyes with oversized pupils.
What. The. Fuck.
He let out a loud scream, and more purple splotches of tissue erupted like a growing cancer in his insides. Each one settled across his skin and turned into a sore that opened into yet another eye. The mirror pieces in his flesh were alternating between colorless and that same black hue from the Black Mirror invocation. The proxy stumbled forward a bit, then stopped and straightened himself up. I was expecting him to lunge at me, but instead he put his hand on the wall with his palm flat against its surface. He then gradually sank into the wall like the black substance from the astral plane had when the mirror shattered. There was that same organic sound as he fused with the wall and disappeared.
I sat there for a moment struggling to find some understanding of what the fuck happened and where it had gone. I took a few cautionary steps backwards and turned behind me, but the hallway was empty. After a few more seconds of standing there, I figured just sitting around was gonna do no good. This was a problem that was going to have to wait.
At the opposite end of the hallway was the stairs I’d used to get up here. I started running towards them as fast as I could until the wall to my right exploded out towards me in a fleshy pillar of purple. The front end of the pillar formed into a vaguely humanoid shape, an upper torso with an arm that clawed its way out of the organic tip. The appendage grabbed my left arm and pinned me against the wall. A head gradually formed into the shape of what I assumed was the proxy’s unmasked face. It was a face that was plane and unassuming, a John Doe you could find on any street corner that would be totally unmemorable were it not attached to an unholy abomination of flesh.
The skin on the head of this…thing…that was one a proxy split down the middle of its face and receded on either side, exposing the muscle tissue as it peeled off and revealing a mixture of its ivory skull and that same black substance coated in unblinking eyes, all staring straight at me. A second humanoid arm exploded out of the wall behind me and wrapped itself around my neck, strangling me. The creature laughed in my face. It was a disgusting, wet laugh filled with bile and phlegm.
And you know what’s truly fucking sick? If it hadn’t been choking me I woulda laughed at that point in time. The black stuff in the astral plane coating the walls was using the remaining magick in the mirror’s invocation to possess the proxy.
That’s right kids. The fucking house was trying to kill me. And the way I see it, there is no sane response to that. So you might as well laugh.
Thankfully my right arm was still free, so I dug into my jacket pocket and clawed at its inside trying to find the dagger. The limb around my neck released and reached for my arm in my jacket pocket. It dug its bony fingers into my flesh and tried to pull my hand out. I could feel the blood drip down into my coat. But my hand wrapped around the cold hilt of the dagger. I pushed out my hand quickly in the same direction the creature was pulling and drove the dagger into the back of its neck. It screamed out in that same sickly voice. But I guess the slash freed the structure from the confines of its flesh. I heard a wet ripping sound and the vertebrae extended out of the torso a good eight inches. The teeth of the skull bit into the side of my neck just below my ear as I craned my head to avoid it’s lunge. The bite hurt and I yelled out in agony, but managed to spit out the remainder of the invocation I had charged into the dagger.
The back of its…flesh…thing lit ablaze as I finished the last syllable. The creature let go of me and twisted it’s spine a full 180 degrees to look at itself. Grabbing the quartz crystal from my jacket pocket I quickly drew the Binding Hexagram in mid air. If I could hold it in place long enough I could possibly get the fire to spread onto the building. The Hexagram shimmered between us thanks to the Black Mirror shard’s effects. With both dimensions bleeding together by the House’s will and the Mirror’s enchantment, my ward could hold this fucked up behemoth in place in both planes.
The fire gradually spread from the beast onto the wall, as I’d hoped. Pieces of burning chea wall plaster dropped down to the ground and hit the carpet, spreading fire very slowly. The Hexagram started to crack under the strain of the house’s influence, but I figured I’d already done enough damage. I had to make my escape. I turned towards the stairs and ran. I don’t think I’ve ever climbed down a set of stairs that quickly before. Getting out was easy as I ran through the gigantic hole Arkady had made in the building with his car.
Making it back to the apartment took for-fucking-ever. With no cash, having most of my limbs full of pain, no transportation…most of it was unpleasant. Eventually I was able to convince a kind lady at some fast food chain (too exhausted and traumatized to give a fuck where it was) to let me make a phone call. I got a friend to take me back. Arkady was already there, as was Babs.
The two of us had a sit down and decided Babs needed to get the Hell out of Austin. It wasn’t safe. I asked her if she had any place to stay. She mentioned a summer shack in Georgia her family had. She still had the keys. That got me thinking, and I contacted Kal and Henry. They were in Virginia, which wasn’t too terribly far, and they needed a place to stay. Seemed like the ideal situation would be to get Babs with the rest of the group and have everyone settle down there for a bit, at least get some real rest and a shower. Given the conditions she’d faced here, it didn’t take too much convincing. We said our last goodbyes and she headed off for Georgia.
So now you know why I’ve basically destroyed my consciousness with drugs over the past few days. Hope you don’t mind, and if you do then go fuck yourself.
Love Under Will
93/93
Previous/Next
When I last left off, Arkady and I had received a message from Javert telling us where he’d taken Babs. We checked the place out before hand. It was a fancy North Austin lake home in a gated community and everything. Place looked pretty boring on the outside. No armed proxies or anything like that. Javert seemed to be acting alone. Of course, if there’s anything I’ve learned during this bizarre fairytale of a life I’ve been leading, it’s never to trust appearances. Always be open to new, unpleasant possibilities.
The night before I charged a small ritual dagger of mine and brought a couple spell components with me. Nothing too big or fancy, as it all had to fit in my coat pockets. We decided that I would be the one to meet up with Javert while Arkady went after Babs and rescued her. I’ve never actually met Javert in person before, not really. This one-on-one would be a first, and I was curious. I’d love to meet the man who’d fucked over one of the few people I’d permitted myself to still care about.
We made it there pretty fast. I got out of the car and walked up to the wooden door. Arkady’s half of the op was up to him, so I had no idea what he was going to do. The front door to the big-ass house was cracked open, so I stepped inside. The place was barely decorated. Plain beige walls, with no paintings or accessories. I half-expected those fake suits of armor lining the hallways and red velvet carpet neatly laid down on the floor. No such luck.
The hallway I’d stepped into had rooms lined up on the left and right with no doors whatsoever. The end of the hallway opened up into what I guessed was a living room. The setup was great for an ambush I suppose, but I had a strange feeling there wasn’t one. Historically Javert waited for Arkady so they could have some dramatic and pretentious dialogue, so odds were good he hadn't set any traps.
The last door on the right had a staircase that led up to the second floor of the house. I heard a piano playing at the top, something fancy like Mozart or Brahms. Three guesses as to who that is, kids. And the first two don’t count. I checked my jacket for my dagger, quartz crystal, and vial of absinthe before making my way up the stairs. And no, the last one isn’t for comfort. Wormwood is used a lot in traditional witchcraft, and that happens to be the chief ingredient of that sweet, delicious nectar. I felt sad at having to use it in such a manner, but Babs’ life was on the line.
The stairs led up to a landing on the second floor. It was every bit as dull as the first, except for one noticeable exception. The rooms were laid out with that painter plastic stuff on the floor. Proxies aren’t renowned for their painting skills, so that probably meant this was an entire floor of Dexter-esque kill rooms. Lovely. I made a mental note to burn this place to the fucking ground once I was done here, but given Arkady and I’s record with Javert encounters that was almost a given. I followed the sound of music, which was gradually getting louder and louder as I navigated through the rooms and hallways.
So after a couple of minutes of walking I found myself standing quietly outside the room where the music was coming from. It was sort of nerve-wracking. I’m no good at physical combat, and I wasn’t sure how Javert would react. He was almost certainly expecting Arkady. Would he flip a shit when a surly, 115 pound Goth kid strode arrogantly through the door instead of his boytoy bibliophile? Would he be amused?
I stood there for a good five minutes running stupid questions through my head before deciding was thinking too much. I checked the watch. It was two minutes after the time written on the note. I couldn’t wait any longer. I reached into my jacket pocket for my quartz crystal and focused on the image of my Heavenly Guardian Angel. I needed strength. Closing my eyes and imagining the blue-skinned creature with glowing wings filled me with a sense of warmth and certainty about what I was doing. I put the crystal back in my pocket, exhaled slowly, and stepped into the room.
The room here was also bare. There was a raised landing where Javert sat at a large piano, playing slowly. I won’t lie, I half expected a small table with dinner for two and some romantic candle lighting. I was beginning to think these Slenderfucks blew their budget on the location and the grand piano without realizing they had nothing left for basic furniture. Javert looked up at me and actually raised an eyebrow in genuine surprise.
Javert: “Setoth? What an interesting turn of events.”
Me: “Yeah, sorry Arkady won’t be here to engage with you in intellectual masturbation. You’ll have to settle with me.”
Javert smiled weakly. I don’t think he enjoyed hearing his favorite pastime described with vulgar sexual overtones. He and Arkady did have a disturbing amount of things in common.
Javert: “Oh, I think I can make some accommodations.”
Without looking down the keys, he started playing Toccata in Fugue [link]. How amicable of him. In fact, it would have come off as rather kind of him had it not been for that whole “kidnapping-my-sex-buddy-with-intent-to-murder-her” thing.
Javert: “Well, that’s quite enough of that.”
Javert got up from the piano and stepped down from the landing.
Javert: “In a way, Setoth, I’m glad you’re here. It gives us a chance to talk.”
I kept my eye on him wearily, but my hands were at my sides. The last thing I wanted was him knowing about my dagger.
Javert: “I enjoy my time with Arkady. He is unique and interesting, but blind to His Light. This story of ours will end with his death because he is stubborn and refuses to see. But you…you, Setoth, have potential.”
Me: “Lemme guess. You’re going to give me the choice you never had,” I shot back.
Javert: “You’ve wasted your life in the pursuit of physical joy and debauchery. You’ve been chasing your own tail and for what? Another night, another drug, another nameless boy or girl to share your bed with. And when you die, what will they write on your tombstone? Here lies Damien, a loving and well-endowed whore?”
Me: “God I hope someone writes that on my tombstone.”
Javert: “Hide behind your derisive sarcasm all you like, but the truth is there even if you do not face it. You were drawn to him. Now, deep down inside, your very soul aches for him. I can see it in your eyes. You slave over your books and write your sigils, you study him and think about him, his nature, his work. It consumes you. You can pretend that your interest in him is one born of survival, but we both know better than that. Your death will mark the end of a meaningless life whose accomplishments will amount to naught, to fade away in the passage of time. Or you can accept His Light and join--”
He didn’t get to finish. Outside we heard the screeching of tires on asphalt, and then a loud crash against the building’s walls. The floor shook and trembled from the force of Arkady’s assault.
Me: “Sorry, you were saying?”
Javert looked at me. It was interesting, his face barely changed and yet his expression was completely different, slightly indignant like some form of misguided pity. He shook his head.
Javert: “So you are as hopeless as that slut you want to save?”
Me: “I suppose that’s a question of perspective. You seem to be under the misguided impression that dying destroys everything I’ve accomplished. But death is just putting the bow on a pretty package. Kill me now or kill me later, everything I’ve done has happened and cannot be erased. You can’t undo my past. Every second I live, every second I make something new or experience a new sensation, I have another accomplishment to add to a fulfilling life. And what do you two have? You kill people? Everyone dies. You’ve done nothing, added nothing. The infinite potential of the Slenderman, and it’s wasted on accomplishing the inevitable without building anything new. That’s cowardice, fear of failure. Fear that what you build may one day crumble. I pity you and your God.”
I didn’t bother really looking back on him after I said my piece. I ran. Back through the doorway and into the hallway where, as I more or less expected, I saw the proxies running towards me. Two of them in cheap dime store masks. I appreciated the Bill Clinton mask, and the other was a tacky drama mask. I didn’t pay too much attention to detail on anything else, just skidded to a halt. My cellphone fell out of my pocket, but had no time to pick it up. Instead I took maybe two steps back to the nearest door and slammed it shut. As soon as I locked it I felt a heavy weight smash into the door and bounce back. They were trying to break the damn door down.
With every subsequent hit, the door gave way just a little bit more. I had to think fast. The room I was in was a bathroom, kinda cramped which would have made any fight a close-quarters one. I’m not good at fighting, especially not close-quarters. But thankfully it seems the mirrors in the bathrooms came preinstalled. I did have one option. I could turn that into a Black Mirror.
I pulled out the dagger and the absinthe. I dipped the dagger into the greenish liquid and applied it to the tip and sharp end of the knife. The nice thing about the absinthe was that it was 140 proof, so the alcohol would treat the wound while the wormwood mixed with my blood. It would be a potent enough combo to make up for the lack of…well…everything else you need to normally do this rite. It was a temporary fix, but I only needed the enchantment up for a couple of minutes. Seconds, even.
I ran the dagger across my left palm. The blood started to flow freely and mingle with the deep green of the absinthe. I traced Astaroth’s Goetic Sigil as best as I could on such short notice sans the dots on each point, but that was all the time I had. The door smashed down and both the proxy goons stumbled in. They looked up at me, at the Sigil written in blood on the window, and then back at each other before taking a cautionary step back.
“Sorry fuckers. No dice.”
I drove the dagger into the heart of the sigil. Only instead of shattering, the whole blade up to the hilt just sort of went into the mirror, as if the glass was the surface of some body of water. The whole thing went black. I chanted out the Key to the Abyss and activated the Black Mirror.
And it comes to my realization now that most of you probably don’t know what a Black Mirror is. The name is a bit ominous, but it is actually nowhere near as scary as it sounds. All it does is allow a regular mirror to reflect what is present in the Astral Plane. Auras will show up, space and time will be distorted, and all manner of bizarre effects show up and are reflected on the surface of said mirror.
Course, I took it one step further. Astaroth’s invocation along with a Black Mirror doesn’t just reflect what’s happening, it actually causes the astral plane to completely reveal itself over the span of a good 30 feet. The two planes appear to overlap to any viewers within this area. And to two proxies who have never stepped foot into the plane, that’s gotta be one terrifying spectacle. But there were other changes I hadn’t counted upon either. As the astral plane bled over with our own I saw what affect Slenderman’s minions (or maybe the beast itself) had wrought on this domain.
Eyes. Fucking. Everywhere.
The walls were a disgusting, putrescent, glimmering black and spotted over with enormous eyes, each perhaps 3 feet wide, with gigantic black pupils and nothing more. The unblinking orbs gazed down at us from above and around us. The proxies stared up dumbfounded and trembling. The room had become elongated and twisted up like a Hellish kaleidoscope. I ran up the incline back into the hallway, which was stretched thin. The whole thing looked four times as long but perhaps two feet wide at the most, which put me far too disgustingly close to those fucking eyes. There I stood as every pupil in the hallway turned to stare at me. Shaking, I took a few nervous steps down the hallway towards where I figured I had dropped my cellphone.
Remember how I said my invocation was sloppy and quickly done, and that the Black Mirror probably wouldn’t last? Thank the Gods it didn’t.
From the bathroom I heard a loud explosion, like glass shattering. Suddenly the floor shifted and changed as space and time reasserted itself against the magick of Astaroth’s invocation. The hallway became linear once more and the dreaded eyes sunk slowly into the black filth that had coated the walls. As they did, the blackness started to recede. It gradually merged back into the walls with a sickeningly organic sound, like flesh being pushed through steel grating.
For a moment, everything was peaceful. I picked up my cellphone. The cover was flipped open, so someone had to have used it. I checked the phone logs. The caller had dialed Babs phone, which had been repurposed for Arkady. Yeah, sounds like it was Javert. I hit redial.
Everything got staticky. I was pretty sure it wasn’t the Black Mirror. The spell should have mostly worn off. But I could barely hear Arkady.
Me: “YOU THERE? ARKADY, IT’S ME SETOTH!”
Arkady: “Yeah [static]…here.
Me: “Where the fuck are you?”
Arkady: “Not far……run……Slender……”
FUCKING STATIC!
Me: “Shit! Is Babs alright?
Arkady: “She’s fine now……Slendy……finished killing me……”
Me: “God dammit! Get the fuck out of there!”
Arkady: “Leave? ……miss fun? Not a chance!”
Me: “You fucking idiot! You will not jeopardize this mission for your massive ego!” I screamed at him. That stupid fuck. But I knew yelling wasn’t going to change a fucking thing. I had to think fast.
Me: “Arkady, if you die now, how will you kill Javert?”
There was a pause on the other side. Maybe he hadn’t heard me. Maybe he had already stupidly charged to his death. But if he had heard me, there was no way he’d pass off this chance. Especially if I was the last person to talk to Javert. There was one last detail before I’d cut off the cell.
Me: “Don’t you fucking dare use Babs as bait so you can escape!”
I shut off the cellphone. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. I had to figure out where the fuck they were. But before I could reorient myself to figure out how to leave this fucking house, I watched as one of the two proxies stumbled out of the bathroom. The one who had the Clinton mask on looked like the exploding mirror had sent shards flying into him. Pieces of jagged glass had impaled him across different parts of his body. Blood was pouring out of his wounds, leaving a gory trail behind him. He turned to look at me, then down at himself and started laughing like a goddamn lunatic.
“Ooooh, a half-dead psychopath. How original,” I taunted. Because seriously, on the list of my problems that’s gotten about as nerve-wracking as finding time to do my laundry. But of course, there was a catch.
There’s always a catch.
The proxy raised a weak hand and gripped the collar of his shirt. I pulled out my dagger, ready to plunge the damn thing into his chest and rid myself of another fucking menace. His other hand gripped another fold and tore upward, ripping the shirt in two. Amidst the streams of crimson streaking down his chest, I saw black bruises form and reform under his skin. The purple and black traveled upward and across his chest, settling for his below his left collarbone. And then the skin split open, revealing one of those sickening white eyes with oversized pupils.
What. The. Fuck.
He let out a loud scream, and more purple splotches of tissue erupted like a growing cancer in his insides. Each one settled across his skin and turned into a sore that opened into yet another eye. The mirror pieces in his flesh were alternating between colorless and that same black hue from the Black Mirror invocation. The proxy stumbled forward a bit, then stopped and straightened himself up. I was expecting him to lunge at me, but instead he put his hand on the wall with his palm flat against its surface. He then gradually sank into the wall like the black substance from the astral plane had when the mirror shattered. There was that same organic sound as he fused with the wall and disappeared.
I sat there for a moment struggling to find some understanding of what the fuck happened and where it had gone. I took a few cautionary steps backwards and turned behind me, but the hallway was empty. After a few more seconds of standing there, I figured just sitting around was gonna do no good. This was a problem that was going to have to wait.
At the opposite end of the hallway was the stairs I’d used to get up here. I started running towards them as fast as I could until the wall to my right exploded out towards me in a fleshy pillar of purple. The front end of the pillar formed into a vaguely humanoid shape, an upper torso with an arm that clawed its way out of the organic tip. The appendage grabbed my left arm and pinned me against the wall. A head gradually formed into the shape of what I assumed was the proxy’s unmasked face. It was a face that was plane and unassuming, a John Doe you could find on any street corner that would be totally unmemorable were it not attached to an unholy abomination of flesh.
The skin on the head of this…thing…that was one a proxy split down the middle of its face and receded on either side, exposing the muscle tissue as it peeled off and revealing a mixture of its ivory skull and that same black substance coated in unblinking eyes, all staring straight at me. A second humanoid arm exploded out of the wall behind me and wrapped itself around my neck, strangling me. The creature laughed in my face. It was a disgusting, wet laugh filled with bile and phlegm.
And you know what’s truly fucking sick? If it hadn’t been choking me I woulda laughed at that point in time. The black stuff in the astral plane coating the walls was using the remaining magick in the mirror’s invocation to possess the proxy.
That’s right kids. The fucking house was trying to kill me. And the way I see it, there is no sane response to that. So you might as well laugh.
Thankfully my right arm was still free, so I dug into my jacket pocket and clawed at its inside trying to find the dagger. The limb around my neck released and reached for my arm in my jacket pocket. It dug its bony fingers into my flesh and tried to pull my hand out. I could feel the blood drip down into my coat. But my hand wrapped around the cold hilt of the dagger. I pushed out my hand quickly in the same direction the creature was pulling and drove the dagger into the back of its neck. It screamed out in that same sickly voice. But I guess the slash freed the structure from the confines of its flesh. I heard a wet ripping sound and the vertebrae extended out of the torso a good eight inches. The teeth of the skull bit into the side of my neck just below my ear as I craned my head to avoid it’s lunge. The bite hurt and I yelled out in agony, but managed to spit out the remainder of the invocation I had charged into the dagger.
The back of its…flesh…thing lit ablaze as I finished the last syllable. The creature let go of me and twisted it’s spine a full 180 degrees to look at itself. Grabbing the quartz crystal from my jacket pocket I quickly drew the Binding Hexagram in mid air. If I could hold it in place long enough I could possibly get the fire to spread onto the building. The Hexagram shimmered between us thanks to the Black Mirror shard’s effects. With both dimensions bleeding together by the House’s will and the Mirror’s enchantment, my ward could hold this fucked up behemoth in place in both planes.
The fire gradually spread from the beast onto the wall, as I’d hoped. Pieces of burning chea wall plaster dropped down to the ground and hit the carpet, spreading fire very slowly. The Hexagram started to crack under the strain of the house’s influence, but I figured I’d already done enough damage. I had to make my escape. I turned towards the stairs and ran. I don’t think I’ve ever climbed down a set of stairs that quickly before. Getting out was easy as I ran through the gigantic hole Arkady had made in the building with his car.
Making it back to the apartment took for-fucking-ever. With no cash, having most of my limbs full of pain, no transportation…most of it was unpleasant. Eventually I was able to convince a kind lady at some fast food chain (too exhausted and traumatized to give a fuck where it was) to let me make a phone call. I got a friend to take me back. Arkady was already there, as was Babs.
The two of us had a sit down and decided Babs needed to get the Hell out of Austin. It wasn’t safe. I asked her if she had any place to stay. She mentioned a summer shack in Georgia her family had. She still had the keys. That got me thinking, and I contacted Kal and Henry. They were in Virginia, which wasn’t too terribly far, and they needed a place to stay. Seemed like the ideal situation would be to get Babs with the rest of the group and have everyone settle down there for a bit, at least get some real rest and a shower. Given the conditions she’d faced here, it didn’t take too much convincing. We said our last goodbyes and she headed off for Georgia.
So now you know why I’ve basically destroyed my consciousness with drugs over the past few days. Hope you don’t mind, and if you do then go fuck yourself.
Love Under Will
93/93
Previous/Next
Friday, May 13, 2011
Babylon Falls
Sorry for the long absence. Things got out of hand last week, and Arkady and I have been spending most of that time prepping for, and executing, a new op. Things are still a bit fucked, but at least we're back in control.
As for what went down...I went to Bab’s place late last week. Walked up to her condo on the fourth floor, made my way to her front door, and rang the doorbell. No response. Curious, I decided to give her a call and see if maybe she had gone out for a moment. I heard her cell phone ring inside the condo, but no one picked up. I knocked on the door, and still no response. I started to worry. So I jiggled the door knob a bit. It was loose. I felt a bit weird about doing this as I am big on respecting privacy, but given all the fucked up shit that's been going on in my life I decided I'd rather be safe than sorry.
The door swung in slowly and I stepped into her place. I tried to keep from making too much noise in case someone was still inside. In retrospect the knocking and doorbell ringing would have been a dead giveaway anyways, but I was really on edge. The last thing I wanted to believe was that Babs was in trouble, especially if it was the Slender One. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a matter of cleaning my conscience. But dealing with the Slender One, is like playing with fire. Anything could happen to her with him in the picture. I was standing in the short hallway that led into the living room. The kitchen was behind the living room. Everything was empty and the lights were off. I stood there in the doorway for a good 5 minutes making sure I couldn’t hear anything. Unsure of what to do, I rang Bab’s cell again. Her phone lit up on the dinner table. I walked over and examined it. It was a gaudy looking cheap piece of shit. Pink case with the Unicursal Hexagram carved into it. It was sitting next to a mixed bag of E and oxycotton. Bad news. Probably wasn’t cops if they left this grab bag of evidence.
I picked up her cell to check her phone logs, but stopped. I had to calmly remind myself this didn’t mean something bad had happened to her. Maybe she just left and forgot her cell. I put her phone down and stepped outside. The next best option was to ask around I figured, so I stepped to her immediate neighbor's door and knocked on it. An older woman answered. Fuck, she looked hideous. Obviously at least 50, dyed blonde hair…she’d clearly gone through a couple different plastic surgery enhancements. She wore about as much makeup as I had on at the time, which isn’t flattering if you’re trying to go with a natural look. She looked like a Barbie doll that had been run through a dishwasher, and she didn’t look to pleased to see me either.
“Hey…your neighbor [Babs], did she…leave recently?”
She stared at me for a moment.
“Hell if I know. I mind my own god-damn business,” she said.
Christ. I hate dealing with assholes.
“Oh. Well, her door was unlocked and I’m just worried she might have gotten hurt or something,” I said, fighting down the punch-this-bitch-in-the-face reflex that was making its way down to my fist.
“Serves that little whore right. Don’t think I don’t know what she’s up to and who she’s shacking up with in there. If her little drug dealing thug buddies finally got their hands on her it’s her own damn fault.”
She gave me a look over again.
“Don’t you have an Anne Rice convention to get to?” she asked, before slamming the door in my face.
Fucking bitch. The mental image of me beating her in the face with my signed copy of “The Vampire Armand” flashed through my head and made me smile, but I brushed it aside. There are other things more deserving of my attention.
I walked back to Bab’s condo and picked up her cell. As much as I respect privacy whenever possible there was too much at risk to ignore here. I checked through her call records. Most of the numbers were on her phone book, but several from today weren’t. I didn’t realize she was so popular. I hit redial and sat down. The phone picked up.
“Congratulaciónes señor o señora! Has ganado un gran premio muy especial de nuestro compañia por ser el…”
*click*
Fuck that noise.
I was on my way to dialing another number when I grabbed her bag of E, deciding I needed to find a suitable place to hide it. That was when I saw it. A police badge. I picked it up and carefully examined it, not stopping to think that I had just put my finger prints on police property. But I quickly realized it didn't matter. It was from the San Marcos police department. That was where Arkady was from before he fled to Austin. Which meant this had to be the work of Javert.
I put Babs' cellphone and pills into my jacket and bolted out the door. I got back at around midnight, but Arkady was gone. I left him an email and decided that I was going to have to hook him up with a prepaid cellphone. Shit like this requires an open line of communication. In fact, not getting him one earlier was downright fucking stupid of me. When he got home I told him what happened. We came up with an interim plan to try and find her the next day.
Fortunately it was all for not. When we woke up and started heading off, we found a note from everyone's favorite douchepig Javert on our front door, complete with a location and a time. Arrogant fuck.
Shit, I'll have to post the rest later. Cops showed up. Dunno if it's for us or not. We might be in trouble.
Love Under Will
93/93
Previous/Next
As for what went down...I went to Bab’s place late last week. Walked up to her condo on the fourth floor, made my way to her front door, and rang the doorbell. No response. Curious, I decided to give her a call and see if maybe she had gone out for a moment. I heard her cell phone ring inside the condo, but no one picked up. I knocked on the door, and still no response. I started to worry. So I jiggled the door knob a bit. It was loose. I felt a bit weird about doing this as I am big on respecting privacy, but given all the fucked up shit that's been going on in my life I decided I'd rather be safe than sorry.
The door swung in slowly and I stepped into her place. I tried to keep from making too much noise in case someone was still inside. In retrospect the knocking and doorbell ringing would have been a dead giveaway anyways, but I was really on edge. The last thing I wanted to believe was that Babs was in trouble, especially if it was the Slender One. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a matter of cleaning my conscience. But dealing with the Slender One, is like playing with fire. Anything could happen to her with him in the picture. I was standing in the short hallway that led into the living room. The kitchen was behind the living room. Everything was empty and the lights were off. I stood there in the doorway for a good 5 minutes making sure I couldn’t hear anything. Unsure of what to do, I rang Bab’s cell again. Her phone lit up on the dinner table. I walked over and examined it. It was a gaudy looking cheap piece of shit. Pink case with the Unicursal Hexagram carved into it. It was sitting next to a mixed bag of E and oxycotton. Bad news. Probably wasn’t cops if they left this grab bag of evidence.
I picked up her cell to check her phone logs, but stopped. I had to calmly remind myself this didn’t mean something bad had happened to her. Maybe she just left and forgot her cell. I put her phone down and stepped outside. The next best option was to ask around I figured, so I stepped to her immediate neighbor's door and knocked on it. An older woman answered. Fuck, she looked hideous. Obviously at least 50, dyed blonde hair…she’d clearly gone through a couple different plastic surgery enhancements. She wore about as much makeup as I had on at the time, which isn’t flattering if you’re trying to go with a natural look. She looked like a Barbie doll that had been run through a dishwasher, and she didn’t look to pleased to see me either.
“Hey…your neighbor [Babs], did she…leave recently?”
She stared at me for a moment.
“Hell if I know. I mind my own god-damn business,” she said.
Christ. I hate dealing with assholes.
“Oh. Well, her door was unlocked and I’m just worried she might have gotten hurt or something,” I said, fighting down the punch-this-bitch-in-the-face reflex that was making its way down to my fist.
“Serves that little whore right. Don’t think I don’t know what she’s up to and who she’s shacking up with in there. If her little drug dealing thug buddies finally got their hands on her it’s her own damn fault.”
She gave me a look over again.
“Don’t you have an Anne Rice convention to get to?” she asked, before slamming the door in my face.
Fucking bitch. The mental image of me beating her in the face with my signed copy of “The Vampire Armand” flashed through my head and made me smile, but I brushed it aside. There are other things more deserving of my attention.
I walked back to Bab’s condo and picked up her cell. As much as I respect privacy whenever possible there was too much at risk to ignore here. I checked through her call records. Most of the numbers were on her phone book, but several from today weren’t. I didn’t realize she was so popular. I hit redial and sat down. The phone picked up.
“Congratulaciónes señor o señora! Has ganado un gran premio muy especial de nuestro compañia por ser el…”
*click*
Fuck that noise.
I was on my way to dialing another number when I grabbed her bag of E, deciding I needed to find a suitable place to hide it. That was when I saw it. A police badge. I picked it up and carefully examined it, not stopping to think that I had just put my finger prints on police property. But I quickly realized it didn't matter. It was from the San Marcos police department. That was where Arkady was from before he fled to Austin. Which meant this had to be the work of Javert.
I put Babs' cellphone and pills into my jacket and bolted out the door. I got back at around midnight, but Arkady was gone. I left him an email and decided that I was going to have to hook him up with a prepaid cellphone. Shit like this requires an open line of communication. In fact, not getting him one earlier was downright fucking stupid of me. When he got home I told him what happened. We came up with an interim plan to try and find her the next day.
Fortunately it was all for not. When we woke up and started heading off, we found a note from everyone's favorite douchepig Javert on our front door, complete with a location and a time. Arrogant fuck.
Shit, I'll have to post the rest later. Cops showed up. Dunno if it's for us or not. We might be in trouble.
Love Under Will
93/93
Previous/Next
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Quick Apology
Sorry for silence. Thinks got fucked. In the middle of an op with Arkady. Will post details soon. On the run. Take care.
LUW
93/93
LUW
93/93
Monday, April 25, 2011
Well Laid Easter Plans
Easter break has come and almost gone for my uni. I’ve spent most of this time…uh… “relieving unresolved stress” from the Labyrinth escapade (and according to Arkady, rather loudly…sorry mate…) and getting myself mentally back in order. Mostly a fellow Thelemite girl that I would occasionally do sex magick with when I got started with this Crowley stuff. Tracking her down took a little bit of work, since I’d kinda misplaced her phone number. But it all worked itself out in the end.
I’ve reconfigured my room a bit to start on rituals and get back into the groove with this Slender business. I also tried to reclaim Porfiry’s body but naturally it was gone. Fiddlesticks. But that’s life I suppose.
I did briefly consider, and I do mean briefly, getting the girl (let’s call her “Babs”) to help me with the Slender One, but common sense and a desire not to drag other people into the mythos sort of slapped me in the face and reminded me that that would be a terrible idea. Really terrible. Like, “Summon Slenderman into my Living Room” terrible. And I try to limit those kinds of catastrophic mistakes to “once in a lifetime.”
I’ve considered briefly looking into this Javert fellow, but he and Arkady have some great chemistry going and I feel like I’d be intruding. You know what they say, three is an orgy but four is forever. With Porfiry gone and Arkady wanting Javert all to himself (I think that’s also mutual) I’m kinda just stuck playing with myself until someone interesting comes along.
I had so much fun writing that last paragraph. You don’t even know.
Anyways, that’s about it for me. I’ll keep you guys posted and let you know when something exciting happens. With our luck, it’ll probably be something soon.
As always
Love Under Will
93/93
Previous/Next
I’ve reconfigured my room a bit to start on rituals and get back into the groove with this Slender business. I also tried to reclaim Porfiry’s body but naturally it was gone. Fiddlesticks. But that’s life I suppose.
I did briefly consider, and I do mean briefly, getting the girl (let’s call her “Babs”) to help me with the Slender One, but common sense and a desire not to drag other people into the mythos sort of slapped me in the face and reminded me that that would be a terrible idea. Really terrible. Like, “Summon Slenderman into my Living Room” terrible. And I try to limit those kinds of catastrophic mistakes to “once in a lifetime.”
I’ve considered briefly looking into this Javert fellow, but he and Arkady have some great chemistry going and I feel like I’d be intruding. You know what they say, three is an orgy but four is forever. With Porfiry gone and Arkady wanting Javert all to himself (I think that’s also mutual) I’m kinda just stuck playing with myself until someone interesting comes along.
I had so much fun writing that last paragraph. You don’t even know.
Anyways, that’s about it for me. I’ll keep you guys posted and let you know when something exciting happens. With our luck, it’ll probably be something soon.
As always
Love Under Will
93/93
Previous/Next
Friday, April 22, 2011
Resurrection: Sixth Communion
The ceremony cradles my head in trance
I brush dust from my teeth
Fleeing hands and spiders
plead for salvation
They wash the clawed of a priest
ritual mockery rectified doubt
I'm holding with arms open wide
sleeping endless sleep
on a bed of nails
Wake me up with your kiss
I'm waiting for consummation
I'm waiting for contemplation
I'm waiting for confrontation
waiting for a place to
Lay my body down
The proud encasing of another soul
buried deep 'neath the shroud
Flourished with the venom
of the serpent's son
I close my eyes retreat
The prayer hands lays down
on the edge of my sleep
Sister Death in lepers's guise
through crimson eyes
of the holy one
All will learn to see
Invocations are invitations
to the bloody red sheets
The circle is broken
by the sleeve
A sacrifice of one
Resurrection- past reflection
Revelation- last discretion
Confession- Confession
Incomplete
Resurrection
By Rozz Williams
Previous/Next
I brush dust from my teeth
Fleeing hands and spiders
plead for salvation
They wash the clawed of a priest
ritual mockery rectified doubt
I'm holding with arms open wide
sleeping endless sleep
on a bed of nails
Wake me up with your kiss
I'm waiting for consummation
I'm waiting for contemplation
I'm waiting for confrontation
waiting for a place to
Lay my body down
The proud encasing of another soul
buried deep 'neath the shroud
Flourished with the venom
of the serpent's son
I close my eyes retreat
The prayer hands lays down
on the edge of my sleep
Sister Death in lepers's guise
through crimson eyes
of the holy one
All will learn to see
Invocations are invitations
to the bloody red sheets
The circle is broken
by the sleeve
A sacrifice of one
Resurrection- past reflection
Revelation- last discretion
Confession- Confession
Incomplete
Resurrection
By Rozz Williams
Previous/Next
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Labyrinth Part 2
So there I was staring up into the colorless eyes of Asmoday. The 32nd spirit of the Goetia met my gaze with his own, his face contorted into a snide smile.
“Well, well, well Damien. Look at what you’ve gotten yourself into,” Asmoday said, his voice an exact match to the ones that had danced in my head just moments before.
I stared haplessly, my mouth agape in awe and amazement at the sight of the demon. Its imposing figure shone in the light of the library, its pale skin glowing faintly like moonlight. The creature it sat upon craned its neck up and snarled angrily at nothing in particular. I took an involuntary step backwards, not out of fear (as would have been rational) but rather to try and take its towering figure into view.
Before I could take another step, I felt a strong burst of wind kick up through the aisles. I braced myself against the headwind as books flew off the shelves by the dozens, hurled by the gale force winds onto the ground before an updraft threw them into the air where several of these books, despite nature and reasoning, froze. Their pages turned by the wind while they hung suspended in mid air. I fell to one knee, determined not to fall to the ground in a helpless state. And from the center of those damned tomes floating in the air erupted lengths of cold, steel chains. Each one snapped around my limbs and tightened, holding me immobile. I tried to move my arms and legs, but the chains retracted into their books with incredible force. I couldn’t move. There I was, bound to these books and completely helpless.
Asmoday laughed.
“You poor, stupid child.”
“What the fuck is going on!” I shouted, though I have no doubt that the fear in my voice was very obvious to my demonic captor.
“Oh Damien. You still don’t know? Of course you do. You may be a fool, but even you are not so blind!” His voice was thick with contempt.
I struggled for a moment to understand what he meant, but he was correct. It was as if my mind had formed some horrific protective barrier, aware that such an idea would have been too horrible to allow into my conscious thought. But in the face of absolute fear and hopelessness, there was nothing left to protect me from the terrifying possibility.
If Asmoday were a Goetic demon…he had to have come from my own psyche.
As if he could read my thoughts (and one would imagine, given the circumstances, that he could), Asmoday laughed again. Seeing my face change with the sudden understanding must have given him immense joy.
“Now you’re getting it, Damien,” Asmoday chuckled. “I am your self-loathing made manifest. Your self-hatred turned against you. That never ending desire in your mind to destroy yourself slowly and so painfully.”
“No! I refuse to bel-”
And that was as far as I got. As I’d started speaking, I felt a strange feeling rise up from the pit of my stomach. I felt like I was going to throw up, but as it rose into my esophagus, it felt…different. Like a roiling wave were churning as it went further up. The movement felt more defined, more furious as it rose, until it reached the back of my throat and I hacked it all out. It was then that I saw what had unsettled my insides.
Maggots. I was puking fucking maggots.
They squirmed infront of me I coughed them into the ground. I watched them wriggle in a fist-size batch, their small fat bodies glistening in the soft candle light. My stomach revolted at the thought of those disgusting little creatures inside my guts. I felt a second wave of vomit rise up, a reaction to the filthy site before my eyes, but it was too much. I couldn’t hold it in, and a second wave of the vermin escaped my insides and projected onto the floor in front of me. Tears streamed from my eyes, my mind unable to comprehend just how vile this experience was. I wanted to die. More badly than anything, I wanted to die. If I’d had anything else left in me I would have thrown up more, but I felt empty inside.
As if to remind me that more suffering were to come, the chains pulled on me. I felt my shoulders slowly separate out from their sockets, stretching me out. Pain shot through my arms and legs. Asmoday laughed.
"That ought to have shut you up."
His mount stood up and walked slowly towards me, the ground shaking with every slow, ponderous step it took. It stopped a few feet away from me, its sickening yellow eyes glaring at me while Asmoday continued his speech.
“You know, you should really be proud of how long you survived before I finally got my chance to kill you. Not that you actually will be proud. I won’t let you. But it is amazing that, despite how much you really hate yourself, you made it all the way here. Gods know you tried your hardest to end it all. Why else would you have tempted fate with that Slender Man, or let that blood thirsty lunatic into your home while you slept. Somehow, Damien, you managed to survive. But no more. Your self-loathing brought you here before me. And now you die. But not before I strip every piece of arcane knowledge from your mind. It is the pain and suffering you and I both know you deserve.”
I screamed. I screamed in defiance. I pleaded. He must have enjoyed it, the sick fuck, because my wailing was uninterrupted by maggots. Asmoday raised a palm up into the air, and before me appeared a Goetic sigil. Bolts of black lightning shout from its curves and shapes into my eyes. Everything went dark. Burning pain traveled along my skull, and I felt everything get lighter. My mind started to get blurry. I couldn’t focus coherent thought as the storm of darkness continued to fry my mind. My thoughts were blanks, half-formed and then dissipated no matter how hard I tried to concentrate and drive the pain away. The bolts stopped.
My thoughts numb, my mind incapable of producing real thought, I looked up at the sigil that burned away a large portion of my mind. The sigil vanished.
“Well, that’s part of you gone forever. Did that hurt, Damien? I suspect it did. You screamed something awful.”
My dumb mind could not produce sound. I gave no answer. A second sigil formed in front of me, that of another Goetic demon. But which one I couldn’t tell. Such wisdom was locked away from me. Another bolt of darkness burst from the sigil and into my eyes. The pain was less than before, perhaps because I had not enough mental capacity to even acknowledge such suffering. But the loss was just as real, and much worse. Somehow, even in my diminished capacity I understood what I was losing.
The burning stopped. The world had stopped being distinct shapes and had devolved into a sea of blurry colors, devoid of any real meaning. I tried to voice dissent, or something like it, but I have no idea how it came out. I was struggling simply to struggle, and I wasn’t even sure why. In fact, that by itself was curious…there was something in me still fighting. And despite everything in the world melting away before the void of absolute thoughtlessness…I became aware of that instinct to fight.
And then there was a moment of clarity. That realization that there was something so intrinsic to my being that I was fighting beyond all rationale. It wasn’t life, or I wouldn’t have surrendered when the chains had enveloped me and I started puking maggots. No, it was knowledge. Precious knowledge. It defined me. It made me everything I was. It was my True Will in every sense of the word. And with that realization also came the understanding that no part of me would ever destroy my knowledge, no matter how much I hated myself. It was the purest pursuit, the highest reason, the True Will give aim. If nothing else, I could never hate myself enough to turn away from the acquisition thereof.
Whatever it was that stood before me was NOT Asmoday. And whatever it had done, it could not have taken away what I knew. Everything went black for but a moment, and form returned to my consciousness. I was no longer in the library. I was in a black forest. Dead trees covered this bizarre wasteland, the sky a sickly green color illuminated by an ambient and sourceless light.
In front of me stood the Slender One. It’s eyeless face was tilted to one side, as if it were studying me curiously. Tentacles slowly dripped out of its coat, those same unseemly tendrils stretching out towards me. But not today.
“No. I’ve had enough of you,” I snarled.
And it was true. In that moment, he didn’t matter. I had found the axis of my existence, the fulcrum onto which I could shift the world. It was that realization that enabled me to find the answers I’d sought. He could do whatever he liked, it would not change how I knew my destiny.
There is a belief within Thelema that the whole of one’s existence would be summarized as the True Will. It was like the orbit of a planet, the course of one’s whole life time planned along the most natural path. And when a Thelemite reached an understanding, an intrinsic knowledge of this True Will then he could meet and discuss with it. Imagine being able to speak to your entire past, present, and future all at once. Every meaningful relationship, every thought and deed, every minor decision you could ever make, brought before you at once. It happened to Aleister Crowley when he met Nuit, the being that gave him the Book of the Law. That night, it happened to me.
Between myself and the Slender One erupted a shining gold light. It illuminated the sky and swallowed up the green ambient light of the forest. A radiant beam shone through the trees, and even the Slender One himself shrunk back before its beauty. My eyes, however, never left it. The light receded, and my eyes fell upon it. It was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. Humanoid, tall and genderless, four-armed, with slightly blue-tinged skin. It bore six beautiful golden wings along its back. In its left hands it held a mace and a sword, in its right a shield and a scepter. Its bare flesh was covered with hundreds of human eyes, all golden. Every eye wept tears of blood which streaked across its skin and pooled at its clawed feet. Its long mane of flowing gold hair came to shoulder length, the silken strands gently swaying in the wind of the Slender One’s domain.
My Heavenly Guardian Angel, my destiny made manifest.
The Heavenly Guardian Angel stretched its wings. The light shone ever more brightly as the Slender One backed away, raising its arms defensively to its face. The angel lifted its upper most arms and pointed its shining scepter at the Slender One. A beautiful ray of golden light emanated from it and shot forth like a wave towards the Slender One. I watched as the light struck the creature, as the shadow of its corporeal being twisted and writhed under the mystickal assault laid down against it. I must applaud the Slender One. It survived a whole 5 seconds of pure exposure before it faded away.
I knew it wasn’t dead or gone. It had merely retreated. But it didn’t matter. The Angel rose up and shone its light upon the entire dead wasteland. I watched beautiful green grass grow where there was once only death. Up above us, clouds swirled together into a beautiful storm. A bolt of lightning struck one of the dead trees. And then another. And another. The forest slowly burned. I watched the wind carry ashes from the burning trees onto the ground. Flowers sprouted from the barren earth. Life renewed itself as the ruined, hollow grounds of old gave way to a vital new existence. It was all so clear to me. My past and my future.
The angel accepted my wordless understanding. It nodded as I watched the spectacle, and then lifted me up in its arms. We rose through the storm clouds and into the darkness of space. I watched the stars shine brighter and brighter. Shooting stars hurled through the empty darkness, filling the void with limitless light. It was here in this place that the Heavenly Guardian Angel finally spoke to me, directly, and revealed to me all things that will come to pass.
What exactly did the Angel say, you may ask, about my future? To tell you would be meaningless. To put it into words as the Angel did would be a vulgar travesty. All that matters is that I have been given the Law, and I will execute it. There is no recourse.
To you, my readers, I say to you what I have always said, knowing now what truth shall be made manifest.
Love Is The Law
Love Under Will
93/93
Previous/Next
“Well, well, well Damien. Look at what you’ve gotten yourself into,” Asmoday said, his voice an exact match to the ones that had danced in my head just moments before.
I stared haplessly, my mouth agape in awe and amazement at the sight of the demon. Its imposing figure shone in the light of the library, its pale skin glowing faintly like moonlight. The creature it sat upon craned its neck up and snarled angrily at nothing in particular. I took an involuntary step backwards, not out of fear (as would have been rational) but rather to try and take its towering figure into view.
Before I could take another step, I felt a strong burst of wind kick up through the aisles. I braced myself against the headwind as books flew off the shelves by the dozens, hurled by the gale force winds onto the ground before an updraft threw them into the air where several of these books, despite nature and reasoning, froze. Their pages turned by the wind while they hung suspended in mid air. I fell to one knee, determined not to fall to the ground in a helpless state. And from the center of those damned tomes floating in the air erupted lengths of cold, steel chains. Each one snapped around my limbs and tightened, holding me immobile. I tried to move my arms and legs, but the chains retracted into their books with incredible force. I couldn’t move. There I was, bound to these books and completely helpless.
Asmoday laughed.
“You poor, stupid child.”
“What the fuck is going on!” I shouted, though I have no doubt that the fear in my voice was very obvious to my demonic captor.
“Oh Damien. You still don’t know? Of course you do. You may be a fool, but even you are not so blind!” His voice was thick with contempt.
I struggled for a moment to understand what he meant, but he was correct. It was as if my mind had formed some horrific protective barrier, aware that such an idea would have been too horrible to allow into my conscious thought. But in the face of absolute fear and hopelessness, there was nothing left to protect me from the terrifying possibility.
If Asmoday were a Goetic demon…he had to have come from my own psyche.
As if he could read my thoughts (and one would imagine, given the circumstances, that he could), Asmoday laughed again. Seeing my face change with the sudden understanding must have given him immense joy.
“Now you’re getting it, Damien,” Asmoday chuckled. “I am your self-loathing made manifest. Your self-hatred turned against you. That never ending desire in your mind to destroy yourself slowly and so painfully.”
“No! I refuse to bel-”
And that was as far as I got. As I’d started speaking, I felt a strange feeling rise up from the pit of my stomach. I felt like I was going to throw up, but as it rose into my esophagus, it felt…different. Like a roiling wave were churning as it went further up. The movement felt more defined, more furious as it rose, until it reached the back of my throat and I hacked it all out. It was then that I saw what had unsettled my insides.
Maggots. I was puking fucking maggots.
They squirmed infront of me I coughed them into the ground. I watched them wriggle in a fist-size batch, their small fat bodies glistening in the soft candle light. My stomach revolted at the thought of those disgusting little creatures inside my guts. I felt a second wave of vomit rise up, a reaction to the filthy site before my eyes, but it was too much. I couldn’t hold it in, and a second wave of the vermin escaped my insides and projected onto the floor in front of me. Tears streamed from my eyes, my mind unable to comprehend just how vile this experience was. I wanted to die. More badly than anything, I wanted to die. If I’d had anything else left in me I would have thrown up more, but I felt empty inside.
As if to remind me that more suffering were to come, the chains pulled on me. I felt my shoulders slowly separate out from their sockets, stretching me out. Pain shot through my arms and legs. Asmoday laughed.
"That ought to have shut you up."
His mount stood up and walked slowly towards me, the ground shaking with every slow, ponderous step it took. It stopped a few feet away from me, its sickening yellow eyes glaring at me while Asmoday continued his speech.
“You know, you should really be proud of how long you survived before I finally got my chance to kill you. Not that you actually will be proud. I won’t let you. But it is amazing that, despite how much you really hate yourself, you made it all the way here. Gods know you tried your hardest to end it all. Why else would you have tempted fate with that Slender Man, or let that blood thirsty lunatic into your home while you slept. Somehow, Damien, you managed to survive. But no more. Your self-loathing brought you here before me. And now you die. But not before I strip every piece of arcane knowledge from your mind. It is the pain and suffering you and I both know you deserve.”
I screamed. I screamed in defiance. I pleaded. He must have enjoyed it, the sick fuck, because my wailing was uninterrupted by maggots. Asmoday raised a palm up into the air, and before me appeared a Goetic sigil. Bolts of black lightning shout from its curves and shapes into my eyes. Everything went dark. Burning pain traveled along my skull, and I felt everything get lighter. My mind started to get blurry. I couldn’t focus coherent thought as the storm of darkness continued to fry my mind. My thoughts were blanks, half-formed and then dissipated no matter how hard I tried to concentrate and drive the pain away. The bolts stopped.
My thoughts numb, my mind incapable of producing real thought, I looked up at the sigil that burned away a large portion of my mind. The sigil vanished.
“Well, that’s part of you gone forever. Did that hurt, Damien? I suspect it did. You screamed something awful.”
My dumb mind could not produce sound. I gave no answer. A second sigil formed in front of me, that of another Goetic demon. But which one I couldn’t tell. Such wisdom was locked away from me. Another bolt of darkness burst from the sigil and into my eyes. The pain was less than before, perhaps because I had not enough mental capacity to even acknowledge such suffering. But the loss was just as real, and much worse. Somehow, even in my diminished capacity I understood what I was losing.
The burning stopped. The world had stopped being distinct shapes and had devolved into a sea of blurry colors, devoid of any real meaning. I tried to voice dissent, or something like it, but I have no idea how it came out. I was struggling simply to struggle, and I wasn’t even sure why. In fact, that by itself was curious…there was something in me still fighting. And despite everything in the world melting away before the void of absolute thoughtlessness…I became aware of that instinct to fight.
And then there was a moment of clarity. That realization that there was something so intrinsic to my being that I was fighting beyond all rationale. It wasn’t life, or I wouldn’t have surrendered when the chains had enveloped me and I started puking maggots. No, it was knowledge. Precious knowledge. It defined me. It made me everything I was. It was my True Will in every sense of the word. And with that realization also came the understanding that no part of me would ever destroy my knowledge, no matter how much I hated myself. It was the purest pursuit, the highest reason, the True Will give aim. If nothing else, I could never hate myself enough to turn away from the acquisition thereof.
Whatever it was that stood before me was NOT Asmoday. And whatever it had done, it could not have taken away what I knew. Everything went black for but a moment, and form returned to my consciousness. I was no longer in the library. I was in a black forest. Dead trees covered this bizarre wasteland, the sky a sickly green color illuminated by an ambient and sourceless light.
In front of me stood the Slender One. It’s eyeless face was tilted to one side, as if it were studying me curiously. Tentacles slowly dripped out of its coat, those same unseemly tendrils stretching out towards me. But not today.
“No. I’ve had enough of you,” I snarled.
And it was true. In that moment, he didn’t matter. I had found the axis of my existence, the fulcrum onto which I could shift the world. It was that realization that enabled me to find the answers I’d sought. He could do whatever he liked, it would not change how I knew my destiny.
There is a belief within Thelema that the whole of one’s existence would be summarized as the True Will. It was like the orbit of a planet, the course of one’s whole life time planned along the most natural path. And when a Thelemite reached an understanding, an intrinsic knowledge of this True Will then he could meet and discuss with it. Imagine being able to speak to your entire past, present, and future all at once. Every meaningful relationship, every thought and deed, every minor decision you could ever make, brought before you at once. It happened to Aleister Crowley when he met Nuit, the being that gave him the Book of the Law. That night, it happened to me.
Between myself and the Slender One erupted a shining gold light. It illuminated the sky and swallowed up the green ambient light of the forest. A radiant beam shone through the trees, and even the Slender One himself shrunk back before its beauty. My eyes, however, never left it. The light receded, and my eyes fell upon it. It was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. Humanoid, tall and genderless, four-armed, with slightly blue-tinged skin. It bore six beautiful golden wings along its back. In its left hands it held a mace and a sword, in its right a shield and a scepter. Its bare flesh was covered with hundreds of human eyes, all golden. Every eye wept tears of blood which streaked across its skin and pooled at its clawed feet. Its long mane of flowing gold hair came to shoulder length, the silken strands gently swaying in the wind of the Slender One’s domain.
My Heavenly Guardian Angel, my destiny made manifest.
The Heavenly Guardian Angel stretched its wings. The light shone ever more brightly as the Slender One backed away, raising its arms defensively to its face. The angel lifted its upper most arms and pointed its shining scepter at the Slender One. A beautiful ray of golden light emanated from it and shot forth like a wave towards the Slender One. I watched as the light struck the creature, as the shadow of its corporeal being twisted and writhed under the mystickal assault laid down against it. I must applaud the Slender One. It survived a whole 5 seconds of pure exposure before it faded away.
I knew it wasn’t dead or gone. It had merely retreated. But it didn’t matter. The Angel rose up and shone its light upon the entire dead wasteland. I watched beautiful green grass grow where there was once only death. Up above us, clouds swirled together into a beautiful storm. A bolt of lightning struck one of the dead trees. And then another. And another. The forest slowly burned. I watched the wind carry ashes from the burning trees onto the ground. Flowers sprouted from the barren earth. Life renewed itself as the ruined, hollow grounds of old gave way to a vital new existence. It was all so clear to me. My past and my future.
The angel accepted my wordless understanding. It nodded as I watched the spectacle, and then lifted me up in its arms. We rose through the storm clouds and into the darkness of space. I watched the stars shine brighter and brighter. Shooting stars hurled through the empty darkness, filling the void with limitless light. It was here in this place that the Heavenly Guardian Angel finally spoke to me, directly, and revealed to me all things that will come to pass.
What exactly did the Angel say, you may ask, about my future? To tell you would be meaningless. To put it into words as the Angel did would be a vulgar travesty. All that matters is that I have been given the Law, and I will execute it. There is no recourse.
To you, my readers, I say to you what I have always said, knowing now what truth shall be made manifest.
Love Is The Law
Love Under Will
93/93
Previous/Next
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