The Dark Somnium - In The Distant Travels to The Wounds of Golgotha

Episode Date: April 27, 2024

This is connected to another story i did and is part of the "You will remember" series that T.J Lea is working on.Special thanks to  @SpiritVoices   @DusklightRadio  and  @RomNex  for joining me in this Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

September 1st, 2020, 11.07 a.m. Patient Miss Lucinda G. would be reported missing by her family when she did not show up to work that morning. Due to Lucinda's predilection for mental breakdowns and bouts of mania, followed by psychosis, it was quickly determined she may have wandered off and could be a danger to herself. A search would be undertaken that evening, but yielded nothing. It would be several days before Lou, as she preferred to be called. called, would reappear, disoriented and malnourished in a field not far from where she was last seen. When questioned on where she had been, she said,

The stars took me away, and nobody could hear them dancing. She then fell into a deep sleep, and when she awoke, had no memory of where she'd been. Preliminary health checks showed deep scars on her lower back, cuts on her inner thighs, and hesitation marks on her wrists. But Lucinda denied making them herself. She freed, frequently asked for her parents and spouse, neither of which could be located. Lou was transferred to a medical facility until discharge was approved and was ordered to be put under monitoring until her new therapy session could be completed. A new specialist at the Inner Sanctum Therapeutic Services had been assigned to Lou.

The following transcripts are a documentation of Lou's last known communications and moments until the incident on September 29th. September 9, 2020, 242 p.m. Hello, you have reached the office of the Inner Sanctum Therapeutic Services. Unfortunately, we are unable to receive your call at this moment. But please leave a message at the tone, and one of our dedicated team members will return your call within 24 hours. Thank you for choosing the Inner Sanctum. And remember, change starts from within.

Oh, uh, good afternoon. This is Lou. I'm just trying to reach someone as I've been transferred to you. your company. And my current therapist is retiring early and I wanted to know a little bit more about the methods of therapy you offer. The website is pretty unclear. I've got a lot of issues and one of them is rearing its head right now. It's a problem my old therapist struggled with and I'm, I'll be available for your call. Thanks. September 9th, 2020, 250 p.m.

Hey, this is Bennett. You know what to do. Hey, B, it's Lou. I called the office like you asked me to, but they didn't pick up. Hard to feel wanted in the heat of the moment, you know. I'm having one of my flare-ups, and it's hard to ignore. They told me that these people would be available 24-7, and the first time I call. I know you're busy on one of your business trips, no doubt. But I really need you? I need my brother.

Call me back when you can, okay? September 10th, 2020, 1230 a.m. You have reached the out-of-hours line for the Inner Sanctum Therapeutic Services. Please enter your patient ID and then press hash. Thank you. We are checking your patient records. You are assigned to Dr. Rawlings. Transferring you through now.

Please hold. Hi. You've reached the office of Dr. K. Rawlings. Unfortunately, I'm unable to take your call at the moment. please leave your name, number, and the reason for your call, and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. If it's urgent, please hang up and call emergency services. Thank you, and remember, within you, there is change. I'm fucking believable.

Hi, Dr. Rawlings, it's Lou. I appreciate the call back earlier. The steps you outlined for mindfulness and anchoring were really helpful, but, well, Doc, it's happening again. I told you that something had happened before to cause my fear of the dark, but I didn't really outline why. I was hoping to tell you using the out-of-hour service I pay for and perhaps put myself at ease, but you're not there. So I'll just tell you now and hope it reaches you before the morning.

Maybe this will help in itself. I used to bunk with my twin, Elle. We shared everything from food to clothes, hobbies to hatreds, dreams to night. nightmares, fears to... Fuck, what would it be? Bliss, that. My older brother, Bennett, used to bully us and scoff about how we were weirdo-sissy twins. Our middle brother, Finley, just read quietly in father's study and rarely ever came out or socialized with us.

He was always... Detached. Mom, Dad, they were always busy with some stupid function. Charity ball they didn't give a fuck about or affair with the other snobby elitists, so... We relied on each other. Sorry. I'm a little jumpy. I know the more I tell you about what happened,

the sillier it'll seem that I'm out of the night sky during the dead of night. But it was one night when we were teens. Our beds facing one another in the spacious bedroom whose window overlooked the dandella below perfectly. Elle, they had fallen asleep pretty quickly. You know, they were always borderline narcoleptic, but me? I was struggling, tossing and turning in the heat of the mid-July night.

Then I heard something creaking. You know how you get used to the way family move in your home based on the sound alone? Well, these footsteps were unlike anyone's I was used to. Unsure. Heavy, menacing. I didn't let on that I was awake, but I managed to creep my eye open just enough to take a peek at the source of the steps. It was a creature.

I know that everyone has dismissed me and insists that I saw nothing, but I'm telling you, it was there. A weird skull that stretched up and had a ring around it, like a halo. Coupled with hidden facial features save for bright, gleaming eyes. I thought I was seeing an angel, doctor. It cocked its head to the side and reached out for me before. before I began to feel sleepy again. I remember floating, the cold air on my back just like this, and the sight of a bright starry sky,

with one in particular twinkling at me before getting so bright it blinded me. When I woke up, I was in my bed and everybody acted like nothing had happened. Well, almost everyone. The stars sure are bright tonight. I think it's time for another trip. Thank you for listening, Doctor. Google search logs, 1245 a.m. Holiday destinations.

Holidays without passports. Holidays without providing information on self. How to leave country without passport. How to disappear. Alien abduction theories. Side effects of antipsychotic medication. Message sent to Bennett Cockrayne Gerald. Subject, I need to talk to you.

Sent 102 a.m. Bennett, you have a. haven't been answering your calls. I'm getting anxious. Look, I know you've got a lot on with your business and that weird experiment you're overseeing, but can't you see that I need you? You and the rest of the family were the ones who urged me to see these people, but I can't even get them to answer. I just feel like I'm being forgotten. I had that dream again last night. I told Dr. Rawlings about it, but it's bleeding over into reality again. Before you say it, yeah, I know, bullshit. But I can't help what I fucking see, okay? I left out that one part like you told me to,

but he's never going to believe me if I don't give him a full story. Can you check in on Finley? Sorry, Phineas sometime. I'm not allowed to leave after Darken. He doesn't even have a damn phone. Maybe he's got some advice given the way he sees the world. I won't keep blowing up your phone or your inbox. Not that you'd even see it with your do-not-disturb function on, but Please remember, your sister needs you. Love, Lou. Songs searched on phone. Guerrillas, every planet we reach is dead.

Jose Gonzalez, crosses. Maisie Star, into dust. Radiohead, lift. Dark ambient soundscapes, volume three. Cook two twins, see you swallow me. Giles Corey, no one is ever going to want me. sadness in the distant travels, vessels, Yuki, September 28th, 2020, 1048 p.m.

Hello, you have reached the office of the Inner Sanctum Therapeutic Services. Unfortunately, we are unable to receive your call at this moment, but please leave a message at the tone, and one of our dedicated team members will return your call within 24 hours. Thank you for choosing the Inner Sanctum, and remember, You are a chrysalis waiting to blossom anew. Discard your old skin. I...

Okay, this is a message for Dr. Rawlings. I don't understand why I couldn't reach him, his voicemail, or anyone at this fucking therapy service. I'm in crisis, and I'm paying you to... Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm not in a good place right now, and I just need to talk to someone. Please, could you call me back as soon as you can? I'm having auditory hallucinations and I can't currently leave my bathroom,

which I know sounds silly because it's my bathroom and my home. I've lived there for most of my adult life. Why would it suddenly be different now? But you know how sometimes when you maybe go see a scary movie or someone tells you something unsettling while out, you get back to your house in the dead of night with all the lights off and your mind just runs through all the inevitable possibilities of what is behind your front door

that now you're not 100% certain you locked? Okay, that's how I feel now. I feel that there's something in my bedroom and that if I leave here, it will get me. The stars seemed different. Tonight on my walk, they followed me home, and I felt unsettled the moment I got through the door. Like something else was here,

waiting in the walls or in the rafters. I know if I feel unsafe, I should call the police over you, but not only do I think this is exactly what Bennett and you have both said, Dr. Rawlings, a product of my imagination, but the weirdest thing keeps happening when I try to call a police. It just makes the busy tone to still a part of my imagination. If you'll hear this when you listen back, or if my vengeful ex-wife has decided to come and put me out of my misery, welcome that over what I truly think this is. Call list.

Sturgeon City Sheriff Department. voicemail left. The family butler. Disconnected line. Inner Sanctum six times. No voicemail left. Minerva. ex-wife.

No voicemail left. Bennett Cochrane. Disconnected after three rings. Sturgeon Astrological Society four times. Several voicemails left. Google search logs. 11.16 p.m. Is my internet service down?

Is my phone service down? Cannot reach anybody. connection issues? Where is everyone? What is the backrooms? Am I the only person alive? Unusual star patterns. Hallucinations in people with mental illness. Unusual star patterns overhead. How fast do stars move in the sky? Abduction stories. Email drafted but not sent to Minerva Gerald. Subject. Why? Minerva, did you look at the stars tonight? They're true. Truly something else.

I spent so many months figuring out why you'd leave me, why you'd up and gone in the middle of the night with nothing but the clothes on your back. I can still picture it clear as the sky above. I'd gone to visit my parents and to collect an anniversary gift. We'd had a fight about kids and you didn't want a surrogate. I told you I wanted to name it after my twin and you... Well, you got that look in your eye that told me I should have kept my mouth shut. But typical me.

I didn't. I've always been protective over my twin, and I refuse to back down when you called them names, said they were a forgotten shell and their shadow still haunted every corner of our home because I couldn't let go and be myself. You said other things that I don't think you truly meant. We got into things. I don't remember much of what happened, but I left in a fury and drove to the hills. The hills overlooking sturgeon are beautiful all year round and give me ample time to think.

Gosh, the stars are beautiful tonight. Have you seen them? I wondered, truthfully, if this was the life I chose or the life that was set out for me. I still wonder if my life was put on this path all those years ago when Elle was taken from us. Sometimes it feels like I'm truly adopting them, their traits and their loves, like I'm wearing their very skin. But the skin doesn't fit just right in some places. It's suffocating me and stopping them.

me from growing, Minerva. I want to take the skin off, but I can't. I bought you a gift at the antique store in town. You always loved their curios and said it helped you feel the past wasn't just dust and faded memories. I thought that was so poetic at the time, but I think in truth, you just didn't want to think of what was lurking back there. I remember walking to my car across that empty parking lot and feeling something overhead. You know that sensation when someone's stare is boring, into your very soul and you can just feel it? It was like that, but coupled with cold water dropped down my back, an instant freeze in my body that snapped me to attention and turned me around to find the

culprit. And I saw the stars. Minerva, I've told you about that night. I told you what I saw and what happened. You were always passive about it, never fully in or out. I don't know if that's because you didn't feel like it was your right to judge or you simply didn't care, but I always felt precarious about the subject around you. But I can't be now.

As I looked up, I saw a pattern that I had never seen in the sky before. A complex, bizarre symbol that made my ears ring just looking for too long, twinkling in a rhythmic pattern before two of them broke off from the group. They grew in brightness until they felt like car headlights on full beam. Min, the stars were looking at me, literally, blinking in synchronicity and bearing down closer and closer. I took a step back and then began to run the feeling of their burning light overhead as they followed me. I heard a sound. It was like the breaking of all the mirrors in the world, an all-encompassing smash that rattled my bones and made my blood boil. Then I woke up hours later with a taste of iron in my mouth.

and the feeling of itching in every facet of my skin, like I needed to peel it all off. I remember coming home and seeing clothes strewn everywhere, furniture dusty and rotting food like you let off a bomb in the house. I tried galling you, but you refused to pick up. He never did like phone calls. I never saw you again. To this day, I have no idea where you went. Maybe they took you. Maybe you simply wanted a clean cut from me.

I wouldn't blame you. I tried talking to Phineas about you, but he dismissed it as problems of the living, interfering with those of the departed. Bennett told me that I probably drove you away as I became more engrossed in my betterment, said I was like a cicada crawling out of my shell, and Minerva did not match me anymore. He always referred to you with such disgust, but I always thought that was just because you weren't tidy. I wish I could speak to you once more, but it seems you can't hear my words. When I try to reach out, it's like all I get is static. My therapist said unkind things about you,

said I need to let go of you for my true self to reemerge after a long dormancy. I don't know. I feel like in a world of strangers, you're the only familiar face I have left. Minerva, have you looked up at the stars? Love, Lou. September 28, 2020, 1147 p.m. Good afternoon. Thank you for calling the Inner Sanctum. Unfortunately, all our advisors are busy right now.

We realize you are in distress, but please stay on the line and we'll get back to you as soon as possible. Remember, your skin is only temporary, and like a psychotic... You can shed it to grow anew. Shed your skin. Young one. Shed your skin. This is Rawlings. I'm not available right now, but leave your name, number, reason for your call, and the Inner Sanctan Pledge.

Then I'll get right back to you. You are being watched. Your actions are being judged. You cannot escape who you are. Trust the Inner Sancta. We can figure. I don't understand what is happening. Why is nobody answering? My brother, my friends, any business? What the fuck is going on? Doctor, I know you think there's something wrong with me. I know you think that my very identity is a construction of a broken mind, but I wish you could see what I see.

I came out of my room when things quieted and found a shape sitting in. my bedroom. It's just sad in the corner chair watching me. Not a single aspect of it viewable. Standing in my doorway for 15 minutes, observing me as I observe it. It hasn't moved. It doesn't make a sound. Am I hallucinating? Am I just crazy? Am I? No, I didn't tell them everything. I did as I was told. I kept my promise, I swear, I kept my promise. Please don't be mad. Hi there, you've reached Lugarhart. I'm probably sleeping right now, but if you leave me a message, I'll get back to you.

Lucinda, this is Dr. Rawlings. I've gotten your messages, all of them. I'm sorry it's taken me a bit of time to get back to you, but things have been busy on my end. Truth be told, I wouldn't be calling you back so late if it weren't for the concern your message is raised. Lucinda, we cannot change what happened to us. We can only move past it.

In your case, your desperation to make up for losing your twin has only intensified these unwanted changes and a desire to be something you're not. Judging by your other siblings, that seems to be a running theme. Now, I don't subscribe to the line of thinking that you can be whatever you want to be. Your identity is fixed from birth and not something you can change like a pair of underwear.

Facts do not care about feelings, Lucinda. That dangerous rhetoric gets us to absolve ourselves of problematic pasts and gives us genderless bathrooms. We've been here before, Lucinda. Every time you experience a psychotic break and regress into yourself, we have to pull you back out. There were no aliens, no specters of the dark taking you and changing you.

The night they first, whatever it was, appeared, they were observing which one of you to take. You and your twins shed a bunk bed, and they had no way of knowing who was where, given how similar you looked. So, they observed, they watched. Night after night day would come back and watch.

Your twin, L, knew something was wrong. They told your parents and insisted you'd understand too. One of us clear they had delusions when it came to their. Powers, they were not wrong about the abductor, but you and your brothers all insisted they were making it up. That is the guilt you bear. Twinless twin is something we're still understanding, Descender, but it's not unheard of for the twin left behind to undergo changes in the absence of their sibling.

an alteration to their appearance, behaviour, mental state, and even sexual or gender orientation to make up for the loss they experienced. Now, I have tried my best to explain to you that you are what you are, to accept those things we cannot change, but to grow from it like a cicada. But you still live in a fantasy world where some other worldly entities are taking you, where nobody is able to speak to you, and most concerning of all. where you have an ex-wife. Lucinda, you have never been married. Your desire to become this Lou alter ego has completely disconnected you from reality. I'm concerned. We all are. Your family is worried sick and we must try to tackle these psychotic breaks head on.

Please, please call me back. I promise I will be here to answer your call and prove to you that you are not alone, that you can be saved and you will be fixed. The inner sanctum will help you blossom and split from your skin. Final call, September 29th, 2020, 3.38 a.m. Hello? Who is this? Doctor, have you seen the stars out tonight? They're beautiful. Lucinda?

Lucinda! Oh, thank God you called. Where are you? Are you safe? Lucinda, I cannot help you if you don't tell me what's going on. Remember, we can help you grow into the circada you are truly meant to be... Doctor, did you see the stars tonight? They're beautiful. What? No, I didn't, Lucinda. That doesn't matter right now. You need to tell us where you are. Your ankle collar isn't providing info. It says you're nowhere. Dr. Rawlings, please. It's Lou. Now look outside, please.

Oh, for goodness sake, Lucinda. You break curfew, disappear on your loved ones for hours on end and leave frantic voicemails to everybody fearing the worst. Now you decide that it's time for some stargazing. How will this help anything? How will this show you've honed our teachings and truly changed? Kenneth, look outside now. Oh All right All right Lou

I'm standing at the window and looking outside Now what Do you see the stars Rawlings? Yes Oh my God What is that

Fuck me What the fuck is that Those are the stars Kenneth What are they? I don't understand How is this They're looking right at me. What are they, Rawlings? Beautiful. They are beautiful. End of transcription.

It was a cold day in autumn, uncharacteristically so, in fact. You pull up your hood to bear the brunt of the chill and step up to the large marble steps towards the pair of oak doors with a single knocker, a hollowed-out deer skull wrapped within a silver horseshoe. You hesitate before grasping it in your hand, the cold silver steel making your skin burn as you wrap the malformed skull emphatically against the door, still clutching your personal invitation in your hand. You don't recall where you got it, nor who wrote it. You just remember it being there, a fixture of your furnishings, enticing you into looking at it. Once you did, the personalized message and accompanied sketch drew you in, and even in trepidation,

you knew you had to be here. The measured footsteps click across the floor before opening and a gust of warm air, followed by a lelting piano rushed towards you. Standing before you is a tall, well-built, and handsome man in his early thirties. His raven black hair swept back into a neat bun. Something about his aura feels different, like the way the air dances on a hot day, the very visage of him swirling. An intoxicating sensation to be sure, but one that carries a sense of. of unease. You brush this aside as you greet him meekly, any sense of bravado you may have in the outside world eclipsed by his demeanor. He smirks and shows you those kinds of teeth that

are far too white to be natural, practically seeing your own inelegance within them, your clear inferiority in that moment. Someone who has it all figured out while you sift through the more of your own ineptitude. You are our honored guest for this evening, I see. Welcome to Sturgeon's most esteemed art gallery, highlighting the great artist La Serva. He gestures for you to enter. Transfixed by his dulcet tones, you silently obey as hypnotic feet take one step in front of the other, and you cross the threshold into the Grand Manor House, sporting the illusory artist's entire compendium.

Inside, you are startled by the sheer magnificence of it all. A grand circular foyer with two spiral staircases at either side, walking up to them leads to a mezzanine that displays a balcony overlooking a strange marble carving in the center. Its depiction alludes you. Perhaps this is one of those abstract art pieces you're not supposed to get. Or, more likely, you're never going to get it regardless. A mouse staring wide-eyed at the magnificence of a spire made by deft hands. Before you can finish the thought,

Hands grasping at frayed sleeves, the sharply dressed man saunteres ahead and stands in the archway. Hands clasped together in front of him as he takes a short bow. My name is B. C. Gerhardt, and I am the curator. You may simply call me B. We are about to embark on a tour of their grandest works, their dreams to nightmares, their fears to blisses. He smirks, as if recalling a fond memory before continuing. I ask that you keep an open mind, you follow my lead, and above all else, you do not look away. The affable body language shifts momentarily, and you sense an air of authority and power exude from him as he leans towards you, holding out a finger to his temple.

You will remember everything that happened here, my friend. With that declaration, he turns on his heels and bounds through the archway and to a misaligned door in the corner of the balcony. The door is ramshackled, decrepit and chipping away. As you inspect it, you determine that this door would more appropriately be affixed to a condemned home in a run-down area, not inside a fine establishment such as this. B stands by its side, hands gesturing to the features as he begins speaking once more. This is where our story begins. Some say it was a cold Thursday in the winter where the very edges of the door were fastened shut by the chill outside,

as if wishing to encase our esteemed artist in nature's very cocoon, once they emerged from the one made of flesh. Others postulate it was during the rainy season. The insects gathered at the front porch, waiting for the artist's already desired blood. Regardless, the nameless artist came into this world with fists bald, eyes shut, and neary a scream, leaving their body. B. produces a rusty key from his lapel and puts it in the barely visible lock. With a hollow clunk, the door swings open, and you follow him into the darkness. You fumble around as you feel dirt and slurry cake your feet as you step through the door, trusting your feet to take you forward, but the feeling of the feeling of the world.

uncertainty is mounting within you with every single step. You hear Bee's footsteps further down the hall and surmise this must be a bigger room than you thought outside. After a few moments, the sound of a light being clicked echoes through the room and you see bees standing underneath a single light bulb grinning. Born into the filth and muck of commonality and poverty, our nameless artists had to struggle to survive. There were no mirrors in the home.

and their mother refused to tell them what they looked like other than that they were beautiful. Encouraging words, of course, but very little was left to their understanding. This is where the earliest signs of artistic genius began to bleed through. Once they were able to start drawing, they never stopped. By the age of 12, they began their journey to becoming La Serva, and started where most artists wrote. The road begins. Impressionism.

With that, B. began lighting oil lamps around the box-like room and stood to the right wall by a large painting with a cloth hanging over it. But like all great artists, they had their own spin on it. You see, from birth, LaServea had been beset upon by calamitous night terrors. Spectres of unspeakable grotesqueness and horror would come from their mind and wreak half. havoc on their sanity, but bless their imagination in the process. A weaker mind may have gone mad from the offset, but LaServea knew they were destined for greatness, even if that greatness would never come in their lifetime.

Your hands tremble with anticipation, as if seeing a new animal for the first time. Fingers dig into the size of your palm, and you feel a beat of sweat trickle down your forehead. A nervous bounce in your right foot and a feeling of itching across your scalp that you're desperately resisting the urge to scratch. Perhaps the humid air is affecting you. Or it could be the glint in B's eyes that suggests he has something more in mind to showcase. That knowing grin when a bully is setting you up for a fall, excited to showcase your failings for all to see.

You know it because you've seen it before. Perhaps you were the victim, the bully, or the bystander. But you know it. It is a look of malice. This, dear patron, is the first glimpse into the beautiful madness of the nameless one. I present to you destitution. B pulls the velvet away, and you almost fall over in the presence of its splendor. It is the house belonging to the broken door you walked into, propped up on stocks made from bones.

The very structure of the bestial-like buildings seemed to. imposing, leering towards the reader from the very painting. Every window, a yellowed eye staring down at you, the porch was scattered sea of splintered wood, sharpened into teeth, above a black sun radiating an ugly shade of puce that the house was basking in. Its very present set every hair on your body to attention. If Bean noticed your fear, he actively ignored it and looked upon it like a proud parent. This magnificence to us is known now as anti-impressionism. Lasserva sought to personify the maleficence within their own mind

and project that distortion onto any and all spectators. I must admit, those would have been far and few given the family's secretive nature and eventual isolation of L'Servea once their mother died. You see, be just a few. to the room itself, and as the light brings clarity, you see wallpaper and old furniture adorning the unchecked corners. This was taken straight from the service home upon their demise. Your mind swells at the thought of someone's entire childhood home being stripped away and

nailed down in an unfamiliar location, preserved for all to see. Is it a prideful moment or one of shame? You don't know, but you feel that overwhelming sense of inadequacy grow. It starts in your toes and rises up your body as your internal monologue confirms your suspicions. You will never achieve this level of public intrigue. Your works and your accomplishments will be forgotten to time. All that will remain of you is a memory, and in time, that too will be forgotten. You push these thoughts from your mind as B stands beside you, peering at something imperceptible

to you. No surprise that the curator would find more insights than you, but intriguing none of the Do you see it, Patron? The mark of Lesserva? He asks you in an inquisitive manner, sincerity in his voice. He points towards the window, a powerful digit with well-manicured and painted nails shaking at its target. You follow its trajectory until you gaze through the farthest back window in the painting.

A dismal, pitiful thing that almost seemed to be an afterthought for Lyserva upon painting it. The windows were slathered with a grease-like stain, running down the pain and almost completely masking whatever lay behind it, but not enough to hide the thin figure descending from the ceiling with its feet never touching the ground, a body hanging from the rafters. I heard its voice call out to me, at the tender age of three, it whooped and hollered so frightfully, child you'll bring a soul to me. B recanted the poem with enthusiasm as he turned on his heel and walked to the other wall where another velvet cover hung over a painting. Lasservis father was an unremarkable individual who drank and beat his wife.

Not uncommon in those days, I'm sorry to say. He was terrified of his child and spent all waking hours avoiding them like they were diseased, claiming they had something off about them and issuing responsibility to Lisserva's already worn-out mother. After one frightful nightmare during the Serba's childhood, the mother would find herself suddenly widowed, the selfish spouse, saving the final act of violence for himself. Noose around his neck, belly full of booze,

and a note all that remains, cryptic in its intent. The ills within this house will consume us all eventually, it said. It was Lesserve themselves who discovered the body, the mother stumbling upon them, staring up at the still warm corpse and drawing fervently. Macab? Yes. But it is always said that genius strikes at the most inopportune times. With that, B pulled back the second curtain and a most macabre, The above image boards away into the deepest recesses of the mind.

A bloated body shaped like a rotted tree swinging from the very rafters located in the service home. The top of the painting is obscured mostly in darkness, save for the wiery hair split into branches and the wide, bulbous eyes sticking out as if threatening to leap from their sockets or apples falling when ripened. The noose wrapped so tightly around the neck it threatened to decapitate him. painted in the guise of a serpent constricting its victim as it continued to grip ever tighter. The tongue yellowed and dripping sap from its very tip. The arms were caught mid-swing, held open like great tree trunks,

with the veins jutting out of the bark-like skin. Insects crawling out of holes in the flesh as the body floated lifelessly at the sides. The toes drawn like roots ripped from the soil and pointed down towards the small figure beneath. A young Lyserva had bowed and bowed. busy drawing a crude depiction of their father with a crann. There are a multitude of feelings rushing through your body as you stare at this depiction of life, sitting underneath what looks to be in agonizing death, sadness, disgust, morbid curiosity, and something else, something you cannot quite put your finger on.

B. studies you with intrigue, watching how you react and the way your head sways side to side, as if mimicking the very rhythm the father's body would have moved until discovery. He leers as he takes a bead around the house, hand gently caressing various furnishings as he speaks. Lyserva would spend the next few years of their life here, perfecting the craft of anti-impressionism and focusing on painting the world as they saw it. Of course, they saw the world very differently to you or I. They saw it as a living, breathing entity, much like the house they lived in. In fact, their nightmares were chronicled in their journals, detailing how the town below felt as if it had consumed them should they ever step foot within it.

This fear would eventually be conquered when they became of age and found a patron who would supply them with quarters in the city. But before they left to embark on the next crucial stage of their growth, they painted this. B walked to the last covered painting in the derelict room, hands trembling as he held on to the delicate cloth and bore another smile that bordered on the insincere. Sturgeon is, by all accounts, a place filled with a most unusual clientele. Rumblings of those with gifts that would disturb and terrify the public are commonplace within its citizens. It has long been said that the town was carved out of the flesh of a dead dead body.

Beast. Perhaps the beast isn't dead, but is instead waiting for the right time to strike. Your eyes sting, and you realize you haven't blinked in quite some time. The air feels thick and your scalp bubbles and itches. You fight the urge to scratch or to blink as B pulls the cloth away, and you feel time around you begin to dilate. Was this how a deer felt within the headlights of a juggernaut? Distance incorrectly judged, beacons speeding towards them before the sensation of broken bones and silence. Unlike the other paintings, this one has no border and is instead plastered onto the very walls. A stench hits your nostrils that makes you gag, but you fight the urge to vomit as your eyes take in every inch of this beautiful monstrosity. A top-down map of

the town would be too apt a description. It is the carcass of a great lumbering. It is the carcass of a great lumber beast, whose taxonomy you could not place, had you a hundred years of research behind you. The torso has been hollowed out, gutted, and organs either repurposed or stripped entirely to make way for the metropolitan district. Complex arrays of gray towers with small eyes for windows all staring up at you as ant-like figures scurry about on the streets below. Perhaps it is the lack of blinking, but not only could you swear you see the image moving, you feel drawn to it, both emotionally and physically, as if falling forward into the painting itself.

A sensation that removes you from your sense of self, perhaps astral projection, overcomes you, and you find yourself seeing your body from the outside. Small but subtle changes immediately lost within the fear of the moment. You brace your feet for the impact that never comes, finally shutting your eyes out of instinct. But no impact comes. When you look upon the carcass once more, you notice Bia's pointing at a particular spot in the corner. A look of pride casting his face in an ugly light. The scholars say this town, shrouded in secrecy and scorn, has not been locatable to the outside world for centuries.

Glimpsed only through folklore tales and that of those with sight beyond sight. Unless you were born here or stumbled here through unusual means, you could never come across such a place. A town carved out of the flesh of an ancient beast feasting on its very life force. A town like Sturgeon. Lesser titled this, A Body Within a Body on Desiccating Flesh. Apply named, is it not? College classes on art history, or even infertive conversations with friends, you'd find the mere notion of an art piece declared to be on flesh, a farce, or something to mottes.

You know immediately that this is not the case here. You break your gaze as he places a hand on your shoulder. You feel the force of his palm dig into your shoulder and send goosebumps across your skin. Maybe someone once placed their hands on you when you weren't ready, hadn't wanted them to or simply done so with malicious intent, but that sensation of invasion is one universally recognized by humanity. You instinctually turned to meet his overbearing gaze, dilated pupils studying you. as his nostrils flare.

This would mark a turning point in La Serva's life. They began dreaming of Sturgeon every night from the moment they began painting this canvas until long into their adulthood. Each time, it would show them the contours of its flesh, the complexities of its insides, and the lives of its individual inhabitants going about their business. Laserva became those people,

staring into them and absorbing part of the world. of them for their art, changing their identity in the process, and irrevocably altering their artistic perspective. Be paused and sighed, still keeping his hand on the shoulder as the other was firmly placed on its opposite, guiding you slowly towards the painting as he continued speaking. It was at this time. Lyserva saw something in Sturgeon. Perhaps you see it too.

Maybe that is why you were called here to witness the beauty of their work and fully understand it. Many patrons have tried, but... The nails dig into your flesh and you worry they'll break the skin, but be relents and guides you towards the door, controlling your every step. To truly understand the boom period of Leserva's artistic timeline, you must experience it as they did. You must answer the question their art poses during this period. The closer you get to the peach-colored door, the more aware you are of the intense heat coming

from it. But there is something else. Something far more sinister as your eyes focus and bees' guidance becomes more pronounced. The peach door is breathing. Hinges straining as the center mass of its archway struggles to contain the pulsating, hairy mass. Perhaps those weren't hinges, you thought, but the tired lungs of one of the Cerver's artworks. You shudder at the thought and banish it from your mind, hoping it doesn't resurface the same way other ugly thoughts do. Violent ends for you and those who hurt you.

Idolations of disappearing into thin air without a trace and becoming something you're not sure you are. But all these thoughts have air within them, a life of their own, so they must resurface to the top of the ocean of your mind. You barely have time to register B stroking the side of the peach door with gentle precision, tracing leather-bound fingers down a particular patch of flesh and almost shuddering with the light as it vibrated to his touch. You are transfixed as the door slowly gives way to a circular room with a searchlight in the center that is routinely moving and fixated on different displays of artwork. Grandpa told you once about the idea of a panopticon, a prison with minimal guards that could theoretically keep watch of countless prisoners through fear of surveillance. But the wave of nostalgic memories is immediately replaced by this sickening reminder entering your brain as you step through the door.

I know what it feels like to be watched constantly, to feel eyes boring into your skull at all hours, scrutinizing you, waiting for you to slip up so they can pounce on you. B whispers a question to you as the light begins to fade around the room and you are pushed to your knees in front of this grand monument to servitude, situated in the center of the oval-shaped room. Your skin bristles as his words seep their way into your skull, but you ignore it for the moment, as your eyes followed the sickly puse light as it directs your gaze to the northeastern wall where a painting sits. B. His voice carries on the wind, but his form alludes you as he begins explaining the work. Lyserva would come to realize that the mark of genius comes with a price.

Their mother used to tell them they carried the mark of Golgotha, a realm and a realm of and biblical literature that saw the death of a religious figure. Lesser didn't fully understand this until they caught sight of their mother destroying an earlier creation, citing it as housing evil. The young artist looked at the fear in their mother's eyes, the shape moving within the painting, and understood. B. pauses, a shudder in their tone as your eyes focus on the wall opposite. This was the night.

their gift was truly born, the gift of manifestation. Your teeth began grinding in that way your parents used to chastise you for. Cramps fill your feet and the sides of your temples throb. You know you are not just witnessing art, but something worse, something darker. A 30 by 40 portrait encased in a bone white trim and nailed to the wall was what initially looked to be something of a Rorschach painting. You'd heard of these, of course, those odd blotches of ink that somehow formed shapes only discernible to the individual, then extrapolated upon by experts in comfy armchairs, to tell you that you have some kind of predilection or sordid activity A,

or propensity for unbecoming desires, B, you hated those people in their boxes. It reminded you too much of the time spent at the inner sanctum, the cold eyes staring at you and telling you how to feel, how to think, think, assuring you they'd call your parents to pick you up once you weren't sick anymore, but never did. How could your parents send you to that place instead of talking to you? Why did that man convince them more than their own child? You lose yourself in the thoughts, and it's only when your eyes focus again that you clock why your teeth were grinding, your legs cramping and your temples throbbing.

It was your body's instincts urging you to flee, that you were seeing something beyond the purview of normalcy, and your best bet at surviving was to get far away, just as it's been urging you to do since the moment you set off from your home to come to this place. But that overriding sensation of guilt, shame, and fear kept you rooted to the spot. Whatever was in that letter was far, far more convincing than your own natural instincts. So you stared. You stared and watched the black shapes on this white canvas spread out to every corner, twisting and writhing like a billion insects marching as one.

They pulled at the edges, bubbled to the surface, and began to form a shape, slowly, but surely. You see the head first, a small bulbous thing that shuts out from the neck, like it's desperate to escape its own fleshy trappings. The ears are pointed. The lobes hang like rotten fruit and seem to cling to the sides of the neck, which is wide and vainy. The jaw is immediately noticeable, and it catches you off guard. prominence, something that resonates within you, shaking hands, touching your own.

I don't know why you hate it so much. It's sexy. It makes you look so cute, not like the others. The lips came next, thin and pursed, chapped and almost sunbleached as they parted to show teeth locked in a grimace. Grinding. Your eyes meet its gaze, a shade of brown your last partner described as the shade of pure soil on a spring day. And you'd always sigh because it was such dumb compliment, but it made you laugh. It made you feel seen for who you were, who you wanted everyone else to see. But these eyes were narrowed. Crow's feet littered the sides, and where they stopped, bright red blood vessels mapped

the whites of the eyes like a stained battlefield where every tear had left a scar. The sallowed skin and pock-marked areas littered with craters of spots of former ingrown hairs you'd spent hours picking at, forcing to bleed until your deft fingernails could clog out the rocky core. Determined to never let anyone see you with less than smooth skin because you always hated the feeling of hair on your face. Nobody had ever told you that you looked beautiful with it, and you damn sure didn't want it now.

This was you. Every bit of you that you'd shut away in a lockbox at the back of your closet, or covered up with years of desensitization, sex, fashion changes, beauty products, or corrective procedures. All of it had bubbled back to the surface, and it was furious you tried to keep it from the light. It shrieks. The enamel on the teeth rotted away from stomach bile and caked in a shade of ginger. The tongue covered in a white paste that undulates, as every emotion this poor, unfortunate creature felt on its own is hurled back at its older self, understandably distraught to witness

a world where it, inexplicably, had moved on. As soon as it started screaming, it stopped. The face relaxed and the lips turned down. Black streams ran from the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth as it simply gocks at you. Within a few moments, the painting had changed back to an odd amalgamation of shapes slowly swirling on a white canvas. You didn't even notice you were crying until Bea appeared and handed you a handkerchief before stepping back into the shadows.

That, my friend, was the tragedy of the herself or Le Mafeo de la Sturgeon. B pauses and takes in a deep breath, admiring the sight. The ugliest person in Sturgeon, the true beginning of Lyserva's gifts. For whoever gazes upon the painting for long enough, they will see the parts of them they wish to keep locked away. And when Lyserva's mother looked upon it, She saw a version of her that she tried to ignore.

A person quick to anger, quicker to beating her beloved child as a way of regaining control for what her husband had done. A person who could not live with the failures of their parenting. I'm sure you're curious if Lasservid themselves looked upon the painting. But perhaps that will become clear in time. You feel sick. Your stomach is in knots and you have the urge to vomit. But you remember your therapy, or at least the bit that's stuck and you hold your nerve.

You came here for a reason, because you know you can't stay there. See this through to the end, no matter what. You are not a coward. You are not broken. You can fix this. You take a deep breath and your eyes follow the panopticon light. Now a shade of indigo as it travels across the room to the east, resting on a wide canvas depicting a white wall with a single stain smeared across it.

arching down and ending in a circle, a noose. You feel the bile rise up again and the hesitation marks on your skin burn. You know what this represents, and it takes you right back to where you were on your first danger night. Dripped in sweat, a shaking hand gripping the bottle of water as its paired partner dishes out the pills. Someone online assured you would be painless, but sometime later your insides were burning and your body shook. You knew it was anything but. A swell of emotion rises within you. Shame, apprehension, concern, and above all, fear still holds the crown.

You continue to stare as B begins discussing the art. Like any genius crushed by the weight of their gifts in a world that seldom understands, Lyserva's life was punctuated by many bouts of mental instability. ever more pronounced when their mother passed away after witnessing LaServe's gifts for herself. She locked herself away in the abattoir and refused to come out, declaring she no longer lived with her child, but instead the monster that will devour her essence.

Ironic, unfortunate as it is, that she starved to death in the end. The next two paintings were done in a state of mania, The first using only the surface bare hands, blood, and of course, their innate gift. Step forward and keep watching, young Cicada. Something about that painting's title sent shockwaves in your mind that jerked your body, but you held fast to the command and walked a few paces toward the display. Eyes focused.

Sure enough, something began to form around the noose, shades of brown, green, and gray piled up like great spires, dirty plates, moldy food, and a living situation in utter filth surrounded the center noose and spread like a tidal wave of fetid and grotesque waste. It escaped from its imaginary boundary within the Panopticon's indigo light and ran amok across the whole eastern wall, as it depicted large insects tearing each other apart for supremacy of filthy kitchen countertops, maggots proliferating in the rotting corpse of the server's mother. Clothes caked in dust strewn across the wooden floors and discarded next to unfinished bottles of booze. Once it had finished spreading and the rotting canvas was complete, you step back and take in the scope of it all as B continues.

Yes, a sorry sight to behold, but LaServa's self-neglect began to take its toll in the aftermath of their loss. They barely ate, drank heavily like their father before them, and rejected the eye. outside world all the more, trying desperately to hide their gift from prying eyes and to understand what this monster within them was that their parents seemed to see, but was beyond their purview. Taking a look around, you see the source of pain and frustration littering this wall of neglect, rippled paintings. In every room, every corner of this decaying home were destroyed projects, ideas that would never

be released and had been thrown away in bouts of frustration. illustration, artist block, and self-hatred. You look back to the center of the noose, and notice it has diminished in size, moving to the one clean spot in the house, the drawing room. In fact, the longer you look, the more you think the wall itself is shrinking, as every facet of filth is shrinking into the center canvas once more, making you feel as if the walls will close in at any moment. That claustrophobic, crushing fear is enough to make your breaths labored and panicked,

but you still keep your eyes fixated on the center, even as your heartbeat is thumping in your neck. Within a few moments, the filth and regret has folded into a drawing canvas being worked on by a tall individual with a wide gate, sitting there with their back to you. It almost looks real, but the oil markings belay its realism and you take a step forward. They turn and stare at you, a menacing, piercing stare from icy blue eyes that stops you dead in tracks. You can't place it, but you know this person. Their lips don't turn up, but you know they're smiling.

Their teeth aren't bared, but you can sense their hunger. They say nothing, but you know their intent. Their hands continue to paint with the rest of their body obscuring the final product. Eyes fixated on you. Their motions are blurred and manic, the joints moving far too quickly to gauge what's going on. if you saw someone on the street painting that fast, you'd assume the end result to be one of sloppiness and abstract in nature. Once they're complete, they turn their body around and the body fades to nothing, leaving

only the finished canvas. It is Lyserva, smiling joyfully with a noose around their neck, the body in the midst of falling off the stool that held them up. Ego's untimely death is the name of this piece, where Lesserva made the conscious decision to put aside their fears, their concerns and any notions of safety to become someone different, someone better. But they had to kill the self in order to do so. It would be after this final art piece, we would enter the penultimate stage of their

artistic journey, for they would have a dream so vivid that it would consume their waking hours. The penopticon pulsates and the boom rattles in your bones as, It swirls to the far corner and a black light burst from it, burning a hole into the final art piece of the room. You feel tired as you walk over. Your thoughts overwhelm you of your own brush with death. You could never bear the weight of two selves, let alone one.

Why bother trying? They didn't even try to understand, to ask and to support. It was straight to seek help from the imaginary friend in the sky. Every day you get told you're an abomination, better off just proving them right. When you are about 10 feet away from the installation, you don't stand and observe. You fall to your knees and gawk at the display. A wood carving draped in crimson and bioluminescent colors beyond your understanding of the color spectrum. But it's the contents that capture your attention as your lips tremble in awe of the mastery.

Many artists throughout history have drawn from their dreams, nightmares and religious interventions to depict the ethereal realms beyond our human understanding. Hieronymus Bosch being one of the most accomplished, but I venture even he would be swayed by LaServe's raw vision, knowing they accomplished this piece in a fever dream of just three days. You are looking at the culmination of LaServea's deepest and darkest fears manifested for all to see before their self-imposed exile. Gaze upon the height of La Serva's boon, delirio Eterno.

Each carving told a story that fed into the next, intricate depictions of malformed beast with appendages that defied physiology, anthropomorphic birds in ornate armor dissecting hapless citizens and feasting on the writhing insects in their entrails. A grand battle taking place on a strange platform made from bones, marrow, and dust. Far above, great obsidian spheres, with wide slits for broken teeth loomed overhead, silently watching the carnage. On the far left stood a black pit that the townsfolk had gathered around, some flinging hapless others into.

Their faces permanently etched in despair and fright as something unseen undulates in the inky maw. Casting your eyes to the center carving, you see warriors, majors, and all manner of nobility pointing and shrieking at something in the distance. The hollowed out eyes and gaping jaws made it all the more uncanny with the wood carvings. You follow their gaze and see a specter floating in the sky. Black clouds gathered around them as bizarre insect-like creatures blasts trumpets and bang drums to its presence. A sash filled with bulbous eyes flows seemingly around their cloaked frame, painted toes and bronze skin dazzle even from the carving. But you cannot make out

their face save for the eyes. Wide, proud, and manic as they stare down at the show of opulence and violence taking place below. This is LaServe's vision. A violent world full of unworthy souls willing to cast aside their own kin if it carries

them favor with their peers. Who will fight over the smallest of sentiments and die for their petty causes. Who will shun anyone and anything that dares to be different in their world of innate ugliness. LaServa saw themselves, enlightened and powerful, returning to Don Della and exacting the kind

of justice it so desperately needs. B trails off as the light moves to the last carving next to his position. One foot up against a steel door as he points towards the carving. This was their dream, one that would take years for them to be. to finally return to. You walk over and feel disgust. It is a grand table stretching from one end of the carving to the next, piled high with bodies of screaming, terrified citizens,

some human, many deformed and bizarre. You can't even tell what species they're meant to be, only that they're in absolute terror as they all stare to the center of this banquet. There sits a gargantuan figure, jaw dislocated and full of broken bodies, their flesh clinging to spire-like teeth, and some hands seemingly reaching out for assistance that will never come. Looking at the hands, you see the fingers turned into pincers that grasp and flay the closest victims trying to escape, pulling at their limbs in order to better devour them.

Your mind can separate this as art, but something within it rings sincere, and it scares you to your core. We will speak no more of this. for interpretation is vital in understanding the service journey. It was at this time they committed themselves to the institution known as the inner sanctum, where they cocooned themselves into a chrysalis and waited, growing, eating, and learning until the day would come that they could emerge anew. They returned to this hallowed ground just once in that near decade's span of time,

known as the fractals, sequestering themselves away in my favorite art piece of them all. Ent Beirung. He opens the door, and for the first time you can't see anything behind it, let alone see anything. It is darkness for an imperceptible distance, and not even sound seems to emanate from within. B offers a hand to guide you in, and you acquiesce against your better judgment, knowing you've already come this far. But once the door shuts, you realize what kind of hellscape you've entered. No light, no sound, no senses whatsoever. In fact, after a few tentative steps, you stop feeling the floor beneath you, and the sensation of falling overcomes your body so powerfully you drop to the ground and curl into a ball.

This Vanta black space is designed to be representative of Lesserva's own mental state during this transitional period. On one hand, there was little inspiration and their thoughts were clouded by darkness that snuffed out all sense of the former self, burying it away as best they could. On the other, you keep your eyes shut tight, and remember when you were a child trying to make your uncanny reflection go away, you'd press your hands into your eyes to see colors, pretend you were descending a magical rabbit hole where you could be yourself and nobody would judge you. It soothed you then and seemed to do the same now. You tried to calm yourself, and after a few minutes, you relax and look around, noticing the colors had followed you into the vantablack room. Short bursts of bright pinks, wild marigolds, and deep ochres float around you and past you, smashing against the wall and creating short after images that at first don't seem to represent anything of merit.

They create something remarkable, for this was the time when, Lesserva began to understand the power of manifestation, harnessing one's emotions and desires and bringing them into the world fully formed. It is here the wheels began to turn, and Lesserva started to undergo the final changes, with guidances from those close to them. You keep your eyes locked on one spot where the colors smash against the barrier of darkness, watching as they form a pair of people, one with a reassuring hand on the other, sat on a bed,

arms bound. They lead them to a doorway with another person restrained and whisper into their ear, before unfastening the straps and closing the door, leaving them with the unfortunate victim still tied down. You look beneath your feet, a brilliant shade of yellow swirls around you and forms a pit not dissimilar to the one in the carvings. It towers around you, and you feel the sensation of sinking as you get closer to its center mass. Something begins to poke its head out. Instinct takes over and you leap for the direction of B's voice. For anything that will save you, you remember how weak this body is, how useless it's been to you all this time, and that your parents were right to call the specialist, that fixing you was always what would happen. You feel yourself succumbing to the

inevitable when a flash of light blinds you and B opens a door some 10 feet away that you leap towards, clutching your chest, and with blurred vision, Bee helps you to your feet and leads you on unsteady legs towards another room on another side of the house. You don't know the root, and you see flashes of red velvet, grand marble, and something crawling along the walls, but you're so relieved to be out of that room and still struggling to keep your breathing in check that you barely register it. After a few minutes, you're led to an armchair in a dark room and placed gently onto it, as bees sauntered around and moves a plinth in front of you, hosting a box and highlighted by a single spotlight.

It is here the work of divinity began. It is here the ant-lion was born. And it is here the tour reaches its end. For this is the final stage. Once the server had emerged from their chrysalis and begun, their work in earnest. This would be where they married their artistic vision, their innate gift and sense of righteousness together to create an entirely new kind of art.

In doing so, they would cast aside their old title in favor of a new one. But before we get to that, we need to understand the process they underwent. So, we have this. Return to utero. B. stands beside it and keeps his hands folded as he waits for you to get to your feet. You take a moment, but you do so and inspect the box. It's made from bone, and numerous sigils are carved into it that you won't even pretend to understand.

You open it to a blinding flash and the smell of a noxious gas that burns in your lungs and sends a ripple through your body. You don't know why Bee would wait for you to recoup before doing this. Perhaps it's like you see with predators in the wild, playing with their food. Nevertheless, your last coherent thoughts are that of confusion and terror as B holds you steady and speak softly into your ear, steering you towards another light that swings overhead down the way. Do you know what ant-lions do to their prey? They lure them in with a false sense of security. ensuring they are deep in their pit before springing the trap. The prey struggles naturally, but they can never climb out as the very walls themselves begin to melt around them.

Your eyes dart to the sides and what walls you can see are twisting and breathing like the peach door. You feel sick and your heart beats faster as B continues. Then, in an instant, The ant lion strikes with its jaws and drags the hapless meat underneath the earth, where it feasts on its essence before casting aside the skin and starting over, nourished by its target. Of course, an ant lion in name is not an ant lion in reality. There are always going to be liberties take care.

Soon you'll see for yourself. You will return to utero. You stand in the archway and feel Beas hands interlock your wrists to the side of two obsidian pillars. You try to pull, but whatever you were dosed with is slowly working its way through your system. Crawling into your lungs and spreading through your bloodstream. Regret takes center stage for a duet with fear and you think of your parents. You think of your partner, waiting for you at home and wondering why you took off in a hurry after reading a letter in a black envelope. You never had the heart to tell them the threat of exposure held within it if you didn't come here.

You couldn't handle the shame of being thrown out into the sunlight and burnt for all to see. Misunderstood, misdiagnosed, misrepresented. Another one of them for the masses to gock at. No, you had to be here, right? You don't get time to answer that question as a black viscous liquid cakes your skin. At first it feels heavy, but the burning sets in and you push past the weak moans to deliver an ear-splitting scream that surprises you. Once again, you feel you're looking in it yourself, suffering.

The black tar bubbling as it eats away at the flesh on your back. You don't even notice B walking around you with a bag full of something he's affixing to your shoulders. They feel awkward, sharp. and weigh down your already weak skin, but you aren't able to resist. B mutters something, and you feel too sharp clasps in your shoulder blades, followed by another severe set of burning. When you are released, you fall to your knees and see B kneel down in front of you with a bowie knife,

twiddling it in his hands. Gone is the expression of joy, adulation, or intrigue. He's detached, cold, and calculated as he talks to you. You are to be the next in a line of many who failed to be reborn. The will of manifestation is alive within you, and your choice to come here showcases that. But before you can gaze upon the masterpiece, you must yourself be transformed. You must be the fallen angel the Serva would eventually become. Gail, so?

He grips the knife with a firm hand, his lip turning down in a grimace as he looks. looks behind you and pulls at something your body struggles to recognize as your own, turning you towards a wall where a large mirror hangs. Your wings must be clipped. You must be humbled before you can return anew. A cicada sheds its entire skin to become something more. But an angel must walk among its fellow man to recognize its own divinity. You see what he has done to you, tarred and feathered, yes.

but something more has taken a hold of you. You see yourself in the way you want to be seen, your skin smooth and luminous, lips bright and plump, eyes alight with the joy of life, and your very smile lighting up your soul. This is how you feel when nobody else but your lover is looking, the you that you want to see.

But then your eyes travel up and you see the black tar crawling down your shoulders, burning your chest and your back. You see the black feathered wings, twitching and convulsing from your back, unfamiliar with their new master, and almost flapping to get away like a fledgling learning to fly. And then you see the knife cut into one near the root. You feel a pain so intense your vision blurs, and it's as if a limb is being separated.

Why would he do this only to take it away? You try to separate yourself from the experience, but all you can think of is the other you in the mirror. That version of you slowly being flayed away until nothing but uglyness. remains, you hate it. You would give your very life to spend just a few more minutes in the presence of that version, to be that version of you. The pain stops and you look in the mirror again. You hear a howling and realize it's your own voice as that same portrait of you from before hows back. The realization that you have always been will now always be this person because of

this sick individual crushes you like nothing else. This has taken something from you, something irreplaceable. You had a feeling this ordeal would be painful, but there's no way of knowing the depths it would go to in order to do what the man had promised. You had no desire to escape, to tell someone, because you know what has been taken cannot be given back. Instead, you wait to be led away by B, and sure enough, he obliges, gently taking you to a red door some distance away. When he opens it, you recognize the room from the beginning, but it's far more vibrant now than it was before. You're standing at the top of the stairs as thunderous applause greet your presence. Unseen hands clap and voices cheer from the shadows. Be leading you by the hand as you gingerly

take step by tentative step down the red velvet stairs and into the spacious mezzanine. The pain is overwhelming and you fear you'll pass out at any moment, but fear and regret now battle with another player on center stage. Grim acceptance. You no longer care what happens and continue moving as directed until finally, mercifully, you are let go and fall to a heap on the floor, sat looking up at B as he walks to the large monument hidden under a veil by the stars. He looks almost forlorn as he speaks to the unseen crowd. Thank you all for coming. The tour of La Cerva's life is now complete. We have seen the birth, struggles, life, and death of Dondella's greatest artist.

becoming Gail, the ad line of Sturgeon. Now we gaze upon their final artpiece, their magnum opus. He looks to you as deft hands gripped the sides of the delicate velvet. This is your destiny. Should Gail look upon you and determine you cannot be saved? For they named it after the very sight where a martyr was crucified for doing what needed to be done. This is where all unsavable in this world go to meet salvation in the next.

He pulls off the veil and your body goes numb, fear, regret, acceptance, and everything else dissipates from you, and they leave the stage of your mind. Even your pain ceases to elicit a reaction as your mind struggles to comprehend the thing in front of you. The product of manifestation, the monument to salvation, the wound of Golgotha. A gargantuan statue towering over you, and covered in a gray and bronze sheen loons overhead. In the very same moment, it shares an air of absolute genius with abject horror. The body is posed with its left arm covering its chest as if wounded. The right reaching out to you.

Around it is a pair of sashes littered with burning eyes fixated on you, its head seemingly hidden behind one of the sashes and cowering its bulbous head. It takes you a moment, but you see the various areas of the arms, torso, and legs where bite marks seem to form. Large swatches of marble are missing and muscle can be seen underneath. The intricacy of the art is astounding, you think, as you process what you see. Then you spy the various blisters, some look red beneath the veneer of bronze and gray. Did that I just move? What about that one?

You feel the urge to move forward, despite the pain you know is still there, as if you're being called by this macabre piece. You do it without thinking and shakily climb to your feet, stumbling forward and trying to get a better look at the head. You don't know why, but you feel like you have to know. Your mind briefly thinks of the life you once led before you met that man in the therapy office, the one who was fixated on your name and why you'd insist on changing it, why you wore your hair in that way, and if he could learn more about you. You try to focus on the could-of-bens and the maybes, but it melts away the closer you get. It's only when you're just over in arms reach away that you notice B is no longer in the room.

The applause and cheers have faded, and the beautiful colors of this mezzanine have drained. In fact, it looks almost dilapidated now, wrought seeping through the banisters above and an ill wind rattling around outside. You hear a small squelch and spy a blister has just burst on this statue, a soft moaning noise accompanying it. But statues cannot moan, you think. As your eyes travel up the sash and stare at the eye in front of you, it's weeping. They all are, shaking and sobbing as they seem to silently plead with you. You recall all the reports of a cannibal killer operating in Dondella Sturgeon. Two wider than white presenters with perfect teeth and uncanny accents talking nonchalantly

about a homegrown monstrosity. Offhandedly mentioning his targets seem to be missing, vulnerable. Someone calls in to make offhanded comments about the community, but you've long since purged that from your mind when the next tidbit of information was brought up with a suppressed dryheave from the co-anchor. You can so remember her relatable voice breaking through the malays of media-friendly cadences. There are even unconfirmed reports that this killer takes pieces of his victims and eats them. How would they know that he eats them, Sandra?

The teeth marks. You don't remember how only some of the bodies were found, but now you come face to face with this mass. You think you know what happened to them. Your last conscious thoughts are that of what lurks behind the sashes. what passes for a head on this monument to destruction. You realize that it is no statue, that whatever manifestation Lyserva has, it holds within it a hellscape you cannot even fathom.

As the last vestiges of your sanity ebb away, you hear three words echo around your skull, before that same pronounced silence you felt in the Vantablack room eclipses your world forever. Be not afraid.