//------------------------------// // Over Dead Bodies // Story: Amnesia: To Err // by JLB //------------------------------// - Hoot. Fixer spat out small bits of grass, mixed together with drops of blood. Presumably his own. - Hoot, - a branch cracked. “Where… and how…” - Hoot. That was an owl. At least, the hoots were definitely those of an owl. Pure, clean hoots. There was no distortion on them. It sounded natural. - What?.. It was chilly. The wind blew from somewhere above and behind - the direction he came in rolling. A small hill, most likely. - That’s... - he stopped to wince as his migraine took over for a few seconds, turning his already blurry vision into a complete mishmash - not right. There was not supposed to be any wind. There was not supposed to be any owl. He was supposed to be dead, or somehow else erased from existence, or whatever these… things were after, for crying out loud. The chilly, windy outside and the grassy hill did not add up. It protested against insanity with improbability of its own existence. If there even was such a thing as an improbability anymore. The owl kept on hooting and the wind kept on blowing. The wind did not sound or feel twisted or intent on ripping Fixer apart, either, much like the owl. The grass that got into his mouth also seemed so, coupled with soil. “Am I… free?” He wished the indistinguishable dark mess around him would stop spinning, so that he could finally see where he was. From what he could feel, it could not have been inside. There were blatantly visible shapes of trees - an entire forest of them, - torchbugs flying around, all the things that you do not put inside. All the things that did not go inside. The wind also could not have come from a window, it would have to be absolutely massive. In the madness he found himself when he woke up, there was never any outside. What little method he found to it, struggling to survive, let alone make sense of a single thing, indicated that the place he was in consisted of jumbled, broken interiors, tied together by some insane plot. It was surreal, hostile and mocked him with its haunting existence. The mere thought of what catastrophe could have caused any of it to happen threatened to shatter Fixer’s mind into pieces. In that insanity, the outside was only there to threaten and end him. A grey, blank mass of nothingness that spawned something impossible. An Error. No owls. No trees. No chilly hillside winds. In short, him being on damp ground, surrounded by murmuring trees and whatever nocturnal life belonged to a forest, had to mean that he was not there anymore. - What? - he shouted dizzily to the wind, grimacing as the pressure in his head destabilized, causing another wave of nausea, - Finally let me out? There was a definite echo. He could not tell before, as then every sound made echoes, including sounds that his imagination conjured up out of fright. This was a good, decent echo. An echo that belonged to a spooky old forest. Not a sign of looming madness. Fixer never thought he would be so happy to be in a spooky old forest in the middle of the night. - Is this over? Am I done? The unicorn grunted, shakily standing up and trying to keep his balance up. - AM I DONE? - he yelled out, panting and coughing. There was no response. What sounds scuttled in the dark did not count - they were clear, not distorted, not hopelessly wrong, and as such could not belong to those he was calling out to in the night. They could not have been part of what he called out to. Standing in place, he looked around, intensely staring at each bit of scenery. It was dark, crooked and rather disturbing. Naturally dark, crooked and disturbing. The trees went up and into the blank dark sky, connecting with each other by means of thick lianas, and between them shadows shuffled and ghostly lights circled around. It was great. Breathing in the air, he stood there. “Something is wrong.” He did not want to think anymore. “Something is wrong.” A misplaced step nearly sent him tumbling down, but he recaptured his balance and kicked the inconvenient book out of the way. “Something is wrong. He had begun to laugh. Raspily, with his head pulsing at each breath, but still he laughed, mocking the horrors that wanted him. They were not there to get him anymore. “Something is wrong.” - Hoot. Ecstatic and more than a little bit delirious, he enveloped a small rock next to his hoof in an aura and threw it high up into the night sky, celebrating survival. He put all his strength into it, however little there was. “Something. Is. Wrong.” THUNK. Coughing from his laughing fit, he still heard it. The rock sounded off very fast. “No.” THUNK-thunk. And then it did so again, landing right next to him. His eyes went blank as he had begun to realize. - No. - Hoot. Fixer looked up, afraid of what he would see. And that was exactly what he saw. - NO. There was a tear in the night sky. He could almost see the piece of cloth hanging down, the fabric disturbed by the sharp rock. And behind that fabric, was wood. The night sky above him was a roof. - Hoot hh hhh. - I did not just hear that, - the unicorn coughed out, turning around warily, - This can’t be real. - oot hhOOOT! The owl was just as distorted. Maybe he just did not want to hear it before, maybe his mind was starting to cave in, or maybe that demented realm had rules more complicated than what he presumed to think he knew. That theory was given some credit. - How can this be?.. Behind him was a broken, blinking night sky. Like a tapestry, it hung behind him, twitching and convulsing each time the “owl” hooted. It was a sick error of a night. A sick Error. It was wrong. - Why... - he glared at it, his cockroach thoughts squashed by the thumping hooves of insanity. He could not drive his eyes away from it. It showed so much in its fractured parts and pieces, but, at the same time, so little of it made sense. He felt his mind being taken away once again. “Find yourself.” The thing in front of him rippled and agonized. It was getting smaller second by second. “Only you can do this.” Fixer’s knees met the ground, the rest of him following suit, his beaten body giving out a moan of pain. “Noone else can do it right.” The wind intensified greatly, pushing him away from the irreal tapestry and his own consciousness all the same. “Fixed them?.” --- “Day 3 They bought it. Never thought myself a good actor, but it turns out that with a bit of a push, there’s very little to impossibility. The hardest parts are over. I have an excuse, a temporary residence and a reason for them to consider me something but a two-bit shamus fuck from hell-knows-where whom they should send off to the authorities. That’s better than I’ve ever had it. Granted, there are problems. Problem one - I’m pretty sure that if the fever does not let off, it’s mugs up for me. Ever since the… encounter in Everfree the forest, it’s been getting worse. I can barely walk in a straight line without a headache now. Expectedly, it makes the task rather difficult. Still, I can’t fault that place for what happened… much. It was there that I got the idea, after all. Either way, I can’t let that deter me. Best case scenario’s that the locals look through the diagnosis again, find some sort of flu and just feed me pills and potions and what have you until it goes away. Doesn't sound too far-fetched. It’s not like I ever cared much about my liver. Problem two - that stupid blue bitch Dash STUPID BLUE BITCH is far too suspicious. It must be some sort of a cruel joke. Of all of them, she has got to be the dullest tool in the shed… and yet, she is the only one to think that maybe a stranger with their photos in his things is a cause for alarm. Of course, she suspects that I’m a spy for the changelings, or that I want to steal that annoying pink earth-bitch’s recipes or some inane crap like that - I really don’t feel like listening to her when she’s around anymore - but if she finds anything at all, there might be problems. Not that I can’t take her. Also, if you’re reading this, congratulations - you have successfully nagged Sparkle into searching the room with the right spell. Better fucking yet, you predicted how exactly the book is rigged to go off if anyone but me opens it. If not, then I don’t envy you, and I’m the one who pukes when he turns his head the wrong way. I’m also probably dead, because hell if I’m going to let you into my room? Got that? Stupid, useless bimbos. Make me sick just thinking about you. Even sicker if I write. Fuck this. I’m talking to myself in my own diary. Go me. Problem three… I don’t want to write about it. Fuck it, I don’t want to think about it. Only I can’t stop coming back to it. I can’t control it. What I saw there, it couldn’t have been there. It’s starting to really mess with me. I don’t like where this is going. Yes, it gave me inspiration, but in return… A sickness I can live through, but this? This is worse. I don’t know how, but this is worse. A hurricane of insanity. It was meant to be gone. It was all fine. I know it was, I got the things and set off, no second-guessing and no secret agenda. It’s like… It’s like something is off with what I remember. Now, when I think back to it, I don’t think I remember that many things, and what I do remember… It is wrong. I think the timberwolves and the forest might not be my biggest problems on the way out.” --- The moon stared right at him. Not the moon, no, that was more of a mockery of it. It was painted on the canvas above. He saw the smudged watercolor now, there where there used to be blackness. Above him was a fake night sky with a fake full moon. He was so blind not to notice it before. It did not even have the Mare in the Moon. “The flicker.” It did, however, stare at him. There was a huge eye painted over it. “The greyish light. This is wrong. This is all so wrong.” That eye moved as he looked at it. This was most definitely not an operable level of existence. It was foolish to pretend that it was, foolish from the very start, when he awoke in pain, falling from his bed onto the library floor, taken by fever, by insanity. A teasing mockery of a reality - one that he could not remember. Now, weakened physically, weakened mentally, he realized that if he were to run from it any longer that would only mean a more exhausted descent into eldritch grayness. Or, worse yet, eldritch colorfulness. The horrid mix of colors that squirmed at the edge of his thoughts, at the edge of this sick world. He had to face it. It was. “You made it. You are in control. You can not stop now. Find it.” With a throbbing pain in his chest, Fixer made himself get up and stared back into the observing moon. His head ached too much for his gaze to move. “You had the power, you have it still. You only have to find it.” - All so real… - a droplet of blood landed on the dimly lit ground in a cough, - It can’t just be. And yet it was. - It… - he muttered, going so far as to hit himself on the head several times - ...is. And I am fine. I can fix this. It’s all going to be fine. Nothing is wrong. As he forced his mind to come to terms with that, something clunked within him. It latched open like a door and distanced him from the pulsing pain, finally allowing vision, breath and movement. A terrible thought to process - the definite existence of undeniable impossibility - but it was the right one. He had to survive, and in order to survive one needs to move on. He would fix it all. That was only logical. That was what he was for. He knew it, he felt right realizing that it defined his existence. He was back to the world gone wrong. “Nothing is wrong.” A moment of visual inspection showed that he was in the same home-grown forest as before. - Something caused this, - he muttered, looking at the ink-captured stare on the “moon”, - I can’t be so elaborately insane. “Perhaps insanity, plain and simple, but nonetheless one you know how to operate. You only have to remember.” Brushing off bits of lifeless grass of him and breathing in the dead air, he saw what had to be his next destination - a source of light close to the treeline. It was not there before. “The changes are caused by the obscure. It is a fickle thing. But you will find out. You do that.” The light near him was sufficient enough to see the shapes of the surroundings, which was also a push to move to the light - behind him, where the “sky” used to be, now stood a solid wall, like one of a barn. It appeared sturdy and bulky, but that did not stop Fixer from giving it a few knocks. Sure enough, there was no passing it - the wall covered a thick layer of stone, and the echoes indicated that the wall stretched on for a long distance, almost a mile, if not more. The idea of checking it all went through his head, but was discarded immediately. The dark, dangerous and unknown depths of the broken realm he was in were much less preferred than the somewhat illuminated ones. At the end of the day, there was only one Fixer to spare, both physically and mentally. He would do best to make his way towards the light. “I hope so.” A small relief came as the unicorn made his way - it was no longer hard labor to put one leg in front of the other. Perhaps his realization of the situation really did lighten the weight on his shoulders, or perhaps the mysterious sickness just decided to take things slow for a while. Either way, barely panting at all, he looked at what cast the light down the hillside. - Strange, - he made a vocal understatement. In front of him was an office. A desk, littered with torn, smudged, blank papers, a seat, an ashtray full of old cigarette stubs. Instinctively, before even looking at any of those in detail, he sniffed and concluded that it had to have been weeks since there was any activity in the office. Then he allowed himself to point out that all of it stood on a grassy patch of land, and the table lamp that clearly used to be wielded in place - as evidenced by a dustless shape on the wood - was peeking out of a narrow hole in a nearby tree. Better yet, it was fully operational. He knew, if only by recollection of the design, that it was not a firefly lamp, which meant that it had no business shining after having been dismantled. It did. It was the light source that lead him there. Fixer tilted his head and walked around the desk, examining the scene. For all intents and purposes, the place looked normal - as normal as an office in the middle of an insanity-ridden forest in the middle of an insanity-ridden realm could be. No scratches, no blood, nothing felt off about it. It was… homely. --- - It is in your eyes, Detective. You are drawn to it. - The one thing I’m drawn to right now is the bed. - You clearly understand that I am merely vocalizing what has for so long been going through your head. We give you a job, you do the job, and everything is fine, as it always was. - Also the booze. Yeah, I’d be grateful if you passed me the booze. - I am only telling you what you know you want to hear. --- The unicorn barely noticed how pictures flashed before his eyes. They were not like the other ones, not like the other memories that came back before - they did not sting. They were almost soothing. Not any more detailed or understandable, but something felt right about them. Or rather, nothing felt wrong. “This place has something to do with me. It feels… right.” That thought made him hold his breath for a second. He then threw the desk drawers open. “Getting closer… somehow…” More blank papers, scrolls, quills and pens. Empty bottles of what had to have been alcohol. One by one, he checked each, getting giddier and more light-headed by the second. - It’s here, - Fixer whispered, the bland aura throwing the last section open. It was there. The Shard. “The flicker…” --- - What are you doing? Mr. Fixer, are you al- --- He cradled it in his telekinetic grip. The same shard from before. The one he cut himself on in the cellar. The one he stabbed the figure with. Sharp and covered in blood, it was so calming nonetheless. It screamed memories into his head, but the pain from these screams did not seem to cause Fixer pain, no, it brought clarity. Not understanding, not yet, but clarity. Though it never belonged there, it felt even better than the homelike office. It was almost as if it gave him direction. What for he could not yet comprehend, but it was most definitely the right way. Though he could hear the dread-instilling distortion and torn words echo in his head, he did not feel the same fear and repulsion. It was not normal, but it most assuredly was not wrong. It was important. It was something to grasp onto, something to link things together. It captivated him. --- All dressed up, all so… posh. So important. So full of themselves. So incandescently cock-sure. He saw them now, and they were none of that. He saw them now, the way they were to be. He saw them , the pillars, the sacred cornerstones that were hidden oh so well. It showed him. He had a goal, the one simple thing left to do was to make himself a means towards achieving it. That was the one thing he was good at. He would no longer be so blank. He would no longer be in the background. He would finally fix the world gone wrong. He rolled over and released another tide of black from his mouth. It was so cold. --- An uncomfortableness caused Fixer to gasp - he realized that for the past minute he had not taken one breath. Coughing and panting, he closed his eyes for but a moment. Once he brought his attention back to the majestic flickering shard, it was no longer there. “Find it.” He felt his face scrunch up into a spasmatic grimace. His source of peace taken away, he was vulnerable again, even while surrounded by familiar shapes. He could not let it pass. It was the key. Determined, he rose up. His path would lead into the skitters and shambles of the forest, through unnatural darkness and whatever unimaginable things it would concoct, but he knew that at the end, he would find it. It would lead him there where he need it. He could not explain how, but he knew. “They think they can get away. They think they can stop me.” The dull air passing in and out of his nostrils, he gathered himself. A closer inspection of what was on the table bore no more fruit than before - the papers were all completely meaningless. He could not even read the text on them. That was fine by him, as they were unnecessary, he knew that. It was no big loss when the light behind him flickered and then no longer shone on the desk, a chill wind blowing off some of the sheets. Fixer turned around to see what happened, the boost in confidence allowing him to do so without so much as a noticeable headache. The desk lamp, stationed in a tree, had fallen apart - the smooth conic part broke off and hit the ground. That did not, however, stop it from sending out a ray of light - it went upwards, lighting up a patch of the night sky on the ceiling far above. There was not even a hint of a power source within - the light simply came out of it, if only to mock laws of reason. Curious, he lifted it up. The ray emitted from the bulb reached relatively far, though not particularly wide, and the loss of the bulky body made it easy to manipulate through telekinesis. - Well, this will come in handy, - Fixer concluded, deciding not to think too much of it, if only to spare himself the dark descent. Instead, he took to a more productive activity - testing a theory that he cooked up, having come to terms with the insane rule-alikes of the world gone wrong. The notebook in his pocket levitated out and under the light, its pages begun to flip. What little remained of the detective inside of him lit up, if only faintly so. “Diamond in the rough.” And there it was - a new entry. One bearing a message yet again, covering up a good part of the text. “Day 3 ? They bought it. Never thought found YOU once shatteredonsider something but a two-bit shamus fuck from hell-knows-where who they should send off to the authorities. That’s better than I’ve ever had it. Granted, there are problems. Problem one - I’m pretty sure that if the fever does not let off, it’s mugs up for me. Ever since the… encounter in broken been getting worse. I can barely walk in a straight line without a headache now. Expectedly, it makes my task rather difficuvictims show signs your idea piece togethern’t sound too far-fetched. It’s not like I ever cared much about my liver. Problem two - that can fixH) is far too suspicious. It must be some sort of a cruel joke. Of all of them, she has got to be the dullest tool in the shed… and yet, she is the only one to think that maybe a stranger with their photos in his things is a cause for alarm. can shapeNot that I can’t take her. FRAME FixER WILL SHAPE MAKE SPACE DO NOT ESCAPE THEY LURE OR it is wrong. I think the timberwolves and the forest might not be my biggest problems on the way out.” After that, only more pages glued together by blood. This one, however, was enough. The words that he could almost remember himself writing correlated with the fragmented pictures that would flash before his eyes. They stung, although now the pain was much less significant. However bad it was, it was overridden by the hope stirred by the entry. Something strange, something wrong was going on with him before it all happened. The sickness was there to begin with. And so, somehow, it came to be from what was, from what he could now remember in tiny bits and small pieces. Perhaps, a way out was not out of the realm of possibility. He could fix this. There had to be a way out if there was a way in. That was how things worked. It brought some reason to the situation. So did the words written over most of the entry. The same confusing hints as before, they were reassuring nonetheless… for the most part. Somehow, by thought or by association, he felt drawn. The direction was given, the fleeting pictures flashing somewhere in the depths of his subconscious. The forest, the fake assessment of trees, bunched under a painted, staring sky. It was only there that his path took him now, where the moon could no longer stretch its gaze upon him. The unicorn took a look into the dreary blackness of tall trees that pushed up against the ceiling, growing from the wooden floor. They seemed real enough. For the purposes of this new reality, they very much were. He took a deep breath, making one last look behind, at what was once close to him, but now was lost to an insane, intricate world and plain amnesia. Now, he was to proceed into darkness. “They think they can hide it from me?” --- It was by choice that he stepped off the carriage a good couple of miles away from his destination. They said it was suicide to go through the forest alone, at night, with no means to defend oneself. He knew their kind well enough. Champions of absolute, unobtrusive bullshit. Eager to believe any folk tale at once, and to exaggerate it tenfold given the opportunity. So blinded by their superstitious fear that they would not notice his horn. It was weapon enough for him, in any circumstance. The map showed him a rather clear shortcut to the village. It was just going to be several hours through the somewhat wildlife-infested and plant-filled thickets, and then he would have a clean, nice way of entering from where surely no one right in their head ever would. All part of the plan. Nothing was wrong. --- The boost in confidence was being used intensely and vigorously. Without it, Fixer feared he would have just started stumbling off the path and into the luring depths of both the demented forest and his own mind. Dead by definition, the artificial forest seemed full of what one would be forced to classify as life. In the distance, he kept catching glimpses of plump torchbugs, but should he ever have come close, they would disappear into thin air. A better look showed that there were no bugs to the torches - floating lights, nothing more. At times, a bird or a beast would yelp out in discordant rage, and never could Fixer identify if it was, in fact, somewhere in the trees, or just in his head. The massive, twisting, sprawling trunks deceived his senses, showing up as shapes in the distance, limbs reaching for him outside the lamplight, smelling of fresh soil and knocking off deceitful echoes. He could only trust what was directly in front of him, caught in the thankfully undying ray of dim light. He made step after step after careful step, led by intuition. Unfortunately, his steps being careful had to mean that the cracking of the twigs and branches that kept springing into earshot was not his doing. “Nothing is wrong. Keep moving. Just a while closer.” The floor being made up of branch-less, soil-less wood was also part of the reason. His hooves thudded on it, the other sounds ruffled and cracked, as if in a real forest. Yet another example of his willingness to mask reality for baseless wishes. Had he been enlightened earlier, he would have noticed it as soon as he arrived. There would have been no anxiety. There was never any anxiety with the Shard. The Shard was gone. At least for the time being. The cracks, however, kept getting closer. Needless to say, Fixer felt like he was being watched. “This is freaking stupid. Those things, they had no body. Fuck if I know what they had. They wouldn't step on twigs. They don’t need to. Whatever is making those sounds has a body. ” As he passed what looked like an old moldy post, there was another series of ruffles and shambles. But this time, it was worse. He could hear someone breathing. That was not him. His was the wheeze that layered over the grunting breath that kept coming from the thickness ahead. Tensing up, the unicorn circled in place. For a while, he figured that perhaps he could catch the thing that kept making noises in the light - it was likely a quadruped of size close to his, possibly wounded, and… Then he realized that whatever it was, it would be far, far from friendly. Also that he would be much happier without seeing it. With that, he almost set off to swiftly get as far away as possible, but then… The post that he stopped at got caught in the ray again. There was a sign on it. Barely visible, murky and worn. Something, a short writing, once cleaved into the solid wood, a long tape wrapped over the sign. It had words on it. As he read them, his ears flipped back. Eyes narrowing, he read: “CRIME SCENE. DO NOT CROSS. POLICE AUTHORITY.” The back of his head felt a familiar sting of a revving drill. Memories sprung up again, meaningless to him in their jumbled form, but painful nonetheless. He did, however, catch something in the chaos of thoughts. That something scared him even more, though why he could not tell. “Victims show signs.” The sounds were definitely getting closer now. Springing back into movement, he tried to tear the tape off the post, but to no avail - it stuck to it. It made noise, too. He was wasting time. Looking back, Fixer could clearly see it. Some distance away from him, between the trees, a very solid-looking shape. It breathed. It moved. It looked alive. Then it got caught in the light. - Oh, fuck me. He lost control over himself. He had been through insanity, he was inside insanity, he saw entities that could not be understood by any mind, he slipped in and out of consciousness. He lived through that all, with his psyche, however dark it may have been to begin with, intact. He had it in him to keep at least remotely calm when horror came knocking on the door. This, however… This caused him to scream out and take off running into the woods, rushing down one of the many branching paths. Perhaps the one reason he kept himself within his body was that the presence of the calming Shard remained within him, promising peace should it be found. He could only try to focus. That thing would not leave him. --- The bed was sick. A sickbed, yes, but the bed just felt so sick after an entire day spent there. He could not see, he could barely move, he could just cough, writhe and, occasionally, breathe. It was starting to take its toll. He was starting to question what was real and what was not. He was starting to doubt if he would ever do what he set out to do. But more importantly, he was positively going insane thanks to the yellow pegasus that fluttered around him nearly all day. He preferred not to listen, but every word she said reeked of the same saccharine stench that haunted this whole entire place. She made no sense, she simply did not work in his realm of understanding. If only not for the pain reactions to every single little thing, he would have probably tried to shut her up. By any means necessary. Yes, he would. --- The worst part was that it looked alive. It really, really had no right to. Torn. Cut. Mangled. Broken. Limbs twisted, like if it had dropped from a tremendous height, only to survive through some hellish means, and shamble on. Steel bolted into the writhing flesh. Dried blood on the swayed chin, erratic twitches of the head. It instilled such dread that he barely felt before. The Errors felt like a defiant force of the universe, they could simply unthink him out of being should they ever want to - but they chose to stalk him down the twisting curves of the world gone wrong, for reasons that he hoped he would never find out. They felt so utterly wrong, so far from his nature that only his mind truly feared them. The rest merely denied their existence. But this was a Victim. This was something made so sickeningly twisted. Something subjected to inexplicable pain. Victims of the age. Victims of the mind. Victims of the trade. Victims of their ways. He ran, ran and ran, away from what filled his gut with a mix of animistic dread and hopeless pity. The drilling pain in the back of his head projected images onto his eyes as he rushed through the forest, barely evading trees, flashlight miraculously still in grip. He almost heard it say something. It was so wrong. It got worse. They were this way because of him. They were made this way because of him. He was connected, he knew. His conscience went off like a siren, drowning him in feelings of pure hatred directed at none other but himself. Heavy, uneven steps behind him, deep breaths haunting far ahead of where the creature was, he only saw them again and again, lying on the dirty floor of the horrible ritual room. If only he could have known. He would just have come. So often he saw them all, but never took real action. Dead, dead, deceased. Cases closed. Blurry-eyed and devoid of hearing all but his worked breath and flow of blood, the unicorn eventually tripped, ramming his head into one of the fake trees. Taken by panic, he struggled to pull himself out, his horn having made a hole in the all-too-soft material the “trees” were made of. Huffing and gasping, Fixer hyperventilated, tearing a piece of wood out with himself, and falling back onto the road. Scrambling to get up, he cast a blurred look at the path in front of him, and felt the race within his head come to a stop. A flashing light blinded him. It flashed red, white and blue. He opened his eyes again, shielding them with a hoof. - How the… In the deeps of the forest there was now a crime scene. Surrounded by the same tape that was on the post, it took up a small opening near a pond. It was on that tape that he tripped. The police carrier light bars, installed on boulders, shone with familiar dim colors, illuminating the crowded trees around. These same boulders, perhaps in a twisted idea of a joke, had the letters “LPPD” painted on them with grey paint. “I must find it. It is leading me. Problems fixed.” Coughing and fighting to regain his composure, he stopped his breath to listen out for the horrible, haunting sounds. The image of the Victim sprung up within his mind, sending him onto his haunches from yet another attempt to stand up. Luckily, the creature could no longer be heard. In its condition, it would doubtlessly make a lot of noise with each movement, noise that he would probably never forget after the one encounter they had with each other. Fixer concluded that the creature must not have been able to keep up. It seemed that he was able to outrun it, even though it was barely an impressive feat - the nightmarish contortions of its body were unlikely to be any help in chasing him down.Perhaps it was wise to fear that it could appear out of nowhere, or that there would be more of them, but fear was not a helper. Even though he found the crime scene in panic, he knew better than to see this as anything good. Panting relentlessly, he thought back to the Shard, and felt his mind fall to ease, if only ever so slightly. He had to look. Somewhere, something would point him onward, and then again, as many times as he would need to, until he would be finally reunited with his one source of reason. Memories of the shard brought him some peace. ---- - Oh, by the… the stench in this place. - Careful with the steps, they are steep. These maniacs hid it well. Water suppression, all the latest. They are well-equipped with decent mages. - It’s more than mages. I can feel it… makes me reel. Do you feel it? It’s so unnatural. - Can’t say. Looks mostly like any underwater cultist ritual chamber I've been to. - Lt., this really doesn't seem like the time for jokes. - I’m serious. I've been to four, just not underwater. But generally they aren't so… clean. - Apart from the corpses, you mean. - These are in every one. Now, they said they should be… oh fuck. Oh, dear fuck, what is wrong with them?... --- “Piece it together. Piece it together, what you saw. Back. ” It was just a pond surrounded by rocks with light bars. No evidence markers, no bodies, nothing else. The only place of interest was the pond, it had to be checked, he knew it did. No thought to all the improbabilities. They had become commonplace enough not to deserve his time in a moment like this. The water was murky, dark. Fixer’s lamp did not pierce through. Not a thing could be seen on the surface - no otherwise ever-present dead greenery, nothing. It made his eyes go even blurrier than they already were, sending him wobbling in place after having merely looked at it for a few seconds. Disregarding the side effects, he had figured that something may have been in it. The rest was barren, and if it was not, it was irrelevant. Upon inspection, there was a fitting object which to prod with - an elongated stone. It was not too big, but the ripples, sound and general post-impact feeling in the horn would tell him if it hit something in the pond. Having set the lamp head on a boulder, Fixer took to submerging the pebble, and almost immediately it struck something. As it glided over the object, it became clear that whatever it was, it had to be big. Not a simple shape, there were drops, angles. Something solid. “What I want to hear…” He walked up to the ominous body of water. The dull magical aura inside showed where his prod was - it had hit a straight patch, somewhere it could be placed, so it would not have meant the loss of his tool if he let go of it. He had to - the flashlight was necessary now, to poke better into the murk. Simultaneous telekinesis was not something he could muster with a fever-ridden mind and an aching head, not to say anything of the exhaustion after the chase. It still sent erratic lightning down his spine just thinking about it. Once he returned with the lamp, though, there was no need for it. In the seconds that he spent having turned around, the pool had already been illuminated - the pebble shone brightly now, much better than the unicorn’s aura, it was… “Once shattered.” The Shard. It was his Shard, not the stupid stone, not anymore. It was there, it wanted to teach him of his blindness, so that he may be guided better, and realize the imperfection which he bore still. It called him into the murk where the structure stood, it was so close. Fixer gladly obeyed, walking closer, and closer, and finally stepping into the pond. As he reached out to grab his prize, his enthralled gaze was met with an unfitting reflection in the otherwise dark waters. He was not alone. He truly was blind. He had let his search for relief get in the way of thought, hearing and sight. He never noticed the distortion, the rips, the horrid noise. The Shard sung such similar melodies, only they did not feel so wrong. He had no excuse. - lright here not in Come in! right doing here? Right behind him. The reflection was so wrong that the water had begun to dissipate, if only to escape. Standing in place would mean the same fate for him. - No, no, no, get away, GET AWAY. - at what king yyjyy yyy are us thin all DANGER He rushed to the Shard, but it floated in the air, evading him, leading him down the steps and under, there where the underwater gateway lead. His eyes showed triple, but doubt was not allowed. Reality rippling like the water which he prodded with such ignorance, he galloped down and into the dark tunnels, the lamp floating behind as an afterthought of his telekinetic leash. - yyjyjyyyyy ome back kkhhkh come back err here y’ DANGER us there He ran and ran, once more chased into the unknown by the unexplainable. Just when enough of his mind had gathered up to conjure up a proper thought, another sound entered the screeching, dripping cacophony. Heavy thuds and wheezes. “THEY LURE. THEY ALWAYS LURE.” He could not escape. Dull grey stone walls around him, reality folding onto itself behind, and a horribly mutilated fragment of something past ahead. The lamp caught the charging Victim with its sourceless light. He looked horror in the face. A young mare, she stumbled ahead, steel bolts in her twisted legs. Her coat bloodstained and milky, she lifted her head, a horrible steel contraption covering up her eyes. On her face, symbols were cut in deep. “Victims show signs. Broken. Shattering. Piece together.” - DANGER A bone-twisting swing of her leg made his inner being wince, but his mind was no longer there. He saw the signs. They felt so wrong. The blinking force of disruption behind him was catching up, eating up the world in seamless jumps. - DANGER The mangled, defiantly living body mere steps ahead brought its angling leg down on him, the sturdy steel magnifying the hurt of the impact. But it… she had already shown him. They felt so, so wrong. Her jaw, part disconnected from the skull, moved. A voice silent, yet perhaps even more blood-curdling than the roar of the Error behind, spoke out: - De… tec… tive… Fixer’s eyes and reason saw no escape. He would not get up in time, she would take him down again. He would not crawl back, he would be lost to the broken whirlpool. He would lay there and then he would be no more. But his mind and passion saw the comforting bloodied shard float behind the poor Victim, placing itself into a section on a door that was so close. In a flash of a second, the signs and clues ran a saw through his head. “Once broken. Shattering. Can fix. Will fix. No compliance Broken key. Diamond rough. Fuel consumed. Template. Fix. Template input. Cleanse source. Pillars one two three four five six. Can shape. Can fix. Reform. Home.” He swirled in memories which he could not possibly hope to understand. That relieved him. He knew he was not supposed to. He never understood. That was good. Because now, he did. If only for a moment, right before seething destruction would erase him. - The Orb… - Fixer looked up at the torn, blurring visage of the poor girl - ...I’m so sorry. A violent cough left Fixer’s mouth as he took in what had to have been his last, bitter breath, but instead of blackness and peace it brought radiance and flight. The roars grew more and more silent, but they did not disappear. As the wind threw the unicorn’s eyelids open, he realized that his lungs would melt on, and that the dread-instilling mess of alien thoughts would now reside somewhere in his head. He was being taken away. The Shard - the wonderful Shard - it stung him in the same place on his chest, and now he was being dropped off on the upside. He knew he did something right. He knew he would be rewarded. The signs, they were shown to him, and he could remember. “Oh, so wrong.” Fixer nearly smiled a delirious smile as his body crashed down to the ground, landing on the same patch of the fake forest where the Victim found him. Through the hollering pain in his head and the near-blindness in his eyes, he still recognized the post. Feverishly uplifted, he sprang back up on his hooves and limped around for the lamp. There was no time to waste, as surely the orange Error would catch up to take him away from the truth. It took a moment of realization for him to see that what he landed on was much softer than the wooden floor. Should that have been the case, he would certainly not have been standing up, as the injuries from such a fall were bound to be grave. He could not have gotten lucky twice - the poor Victim’s swing only left him bruised and cut, with no significant damage. Having set out ahead to where clarity awaited, Fixer took a glance underneath. He was walking on a sea of corpses. - Oh… fuck, oh shit, oh how could… No panic allowed, he pointed his light ahead and rushed on past the post. It was devoid of the police tape, but somehow, he already knew what it said. The writing said “ORB”. Tangled limbs and open wounds, the dead bodies still acted as soil for the trees, which spiralled into the ceiling still. That ceiling had begun to leak, and from the cracks a liquid started to drop - it was blood, he knew the smell. It was black. - De… tec… tive… Frantically maneuvering among the corpses, Fixer ran on, now certainly under chase. He questioned no more, for that would take time. He could not waste time. He saw it. The perfect, shining, round grey Orb on a pyramidal pedestal so close to him, elevated above the sea of corpses. He could fit it in his hooves. And sure as it were, the Shard levitated above the treasured artifact. A whole hatch opened in his reeling mind, draining the anxiety away. There would be only one last stretch necessary, and he would finally understand. He would do what he was told. What he was meant to. If only the bodies would stop flashing pictures in his head, telling him how they were gone and how he and his lot did nothing to prevent that. They guilted him. And that took time. - De… tec… tive… Finally, he was there, heavy steps behind him and loud cracks all the same. So many bones cracked, allowing passage to what, by right, had to have been part of the body pit. But it was fruitless. He threw himself towards the perfect Orb. And landed on a rough wooden floor. A door smashed open. The last thing to go through his mind on top of the otherworldly knowledge was disappointment. “We were so close.”