A venomous rage began to percolate in my gut.
'I suffered serious symptoms after the integration: cannibalistic ideations, a full-blown psychosis (a video shows me just sitting catatonically on my bed, but inside my head, weeks had bled into a hyper-realistic unreality), visions of exquisite gore, a total atrophy of empathy, feral aggression, necromantic fantasies_and one seductively beautiful side effect: I suddenly possessed a fluency in every human language and a Gnostic insight into the hidden architecture of things unseen.'
The journal entry continued, 'I finally took a break from the macabre, but the troll behavior took me down. I couldn't keep fighting on the outside and inside. After a while, you start to believe what they say about you. I felt like I had become a monster.'
Now that is some high-grade, uncut bullshit. I stared at the page, my knuckles bleached white around the journal's spine. She wasn't suffering from the integration; she was suffering from the violent, clumsy rejection of it. Those "symptoms" are just the shrapnel that flies when you try to cram your shadow-self back into its cage after letting it taste the air. And not one goddamn person in her precious online sanctuaries stepped in to muzzle the trolls or tell her it was okay to be what she was. This is straightforward, infuriatingly pedestrian bullshit. Fuck the goddess. Fuck the trolls. They smelled the moment she flinched from her own macabre brilliance and decided it was open season.
She made herself vulnerable, and the hyenas pounced. I drained the bottle and hurled it against the far wall, where it detonated in a wet explosion of cheap whiskey and glittering shrapnel. Alright, motherfuckers. Some lines you just don't cross. This was a literary sacrilege, as profane as waltzing into a temple and executing every monk who hasn't taken a vow of silence_while forcing the silent ones to watch.
I cracked the crate again. A mountain of paper remained. I tossed the journal back inside and slammed the lid. This is the part the amateurs always forget_the second read. The autopsy. You have to dissect the meaning, the subtext, the lesson. It all serves a purpose. A woman is dead because of the chorus she chose to heed. Trolled into the fucking grave by a community that cannibalized its own. She must have had supporters, some vanilla-scented cheerleaders cooing in her ear, telling her to abandon the 'dark' aesthetic. Otherwise, she would've realized her symptoms were self-inflicted and dived right back into the beautiful abyss. And if she was completely oblivious to Jung_then yeah, a flesh-and-blood doppelgänger materializing in your living room would be fucking terrifying.
Especially on day two.
So, fleeing her own genius was act one. Act two was her mindset. Her ego, flayed and bruised. Her old work became a source of shame, a bitter "I used to," which would naturally create friction with other 'dark' artists. They aren't really dark, by the way. They just want to be. There are two kinds of darkness. There's the illusion_the dime-store Satanists and try-hards playing dress-up in daddy's darkness. And then there's the genuine article. The kind that doesn't have to try_it just is. The goddess, for instance, is authentically tenebrous. I slumped back in my chair, the booze finally winning the war, my head starting to loll. Hell, why not. Let's go say hello to Heljō.
I spun in my chair. Humanity is cresting a new wave of weaponized stupidity. A civilization of slaves with benefits, blissfully unaware of their chains because they've been brainwashed to believe the rattling is applause. You point out the cage, and they've been conditioned to call it a conspiracy. "We aren't slaves," they parrot, or worse, "Yeah, but what are you gonna do? That's life." How about you stop shuffling to work like the same hive-minded drone that gets chastised for ten minutes of tardiness? You are the status quo; you hold all the cards. You just have to play them in unison. But no. You're taught to hate each other, to squabble over the most insipid shit imaginable. If you could just shut the fuck up, pay attention, and stop consuming for five months, you could change the world. Stop production. The rich would meet your demands to get you back on the wheel. Know your role and how to manipulate the game to your advantage. But you're too worried about counterfeit celebrities and algorithm-approved outrage. Your leaders don't rule a damn thing. You do.
Another spin. Spin. Spin. All you do is spin. A warped record playing some scratchy, romantic jazz. Let me drop a new needle on this groove for you. The hardest part isn't admitting you have issues. It's admitting those issues are you. Then you can use them. Evolve with them. Wisdom is just the scar tissue you build up from fucking up repeatedly. You only see the solutions when you stop lying to yourself about who and what you are. My thoughts began to fray as I drifted away.
I woke inside the tornado, her voice a blade cutting through the dream's static. "You again? You are not supposed to be here."
"Hold up," I said, my vision sharpening. I could see her hand already poised to snap her fingers, to erase me. "I believe in ghosts, and I apologize for the rude introduction last time. I come seeking wisdom."
Her hand lowered. "What do you seek?"
"What's your racket? Your function in this whole cosmic shakedown?"
She almost relaxed. "I write poetry."
"Can you be more specific?" I stepped toward her, hands open, a placating gesture. "And why the hell am I talking to you instead of Beatrix?"
"Beatrix was a persona, the meat-puppet. I am the will that moved her hand, an extension of me." Her feline eyes blinked, the lids sliding sideways.
"I thought you were a goddess?"
"I am." Her posture went rigid, a soldier's discipline.
"You lost me. You're human, but also a goddess?" My head tilted, eyes narrowed in confusion.
"A Faustian arrangement. I was Beatrix's poetry. The tether between her psyche and the ink. When she wrote from that raw, unguarded place, I was writing through her."
"So why are we talking now?"
"I don't know," she stated, a blank wall of a voice. "You have no desires. You are unpredictable. Not exactly 'destiny' material."
"What can I get from you?" I started firing questions like random buckshot.
"Everything. Nothing. The space between. Poetry."
I waited, processing that non-answer. "What are you guarding?"
"Darkness is not a game. Too many treat this place like a safari. This place is next door to Hell, but it's colder." Another slow, sideways blink. "I protect my Pyxis. Without it, the world loses its balance."
"Why are we talking?" I asked again, a creeping dread crawling up my spine as she repeated her earlier response, word for word.
"I don't know. You have no desires. You are unpredictable. Not exactly 'destiny' material."
"Okay, alright. So you spit out fated, pre-written answers?"
"Yes."
That explained the loop. She couldn't improvise, couldn't risk a butterfly effect. "What does Beatrix Macabre want me to do?"
She glided toward me. "She wanted you to take the money and run. I asked you here."
"Excuse me?" I pinched the bridge of my nose, the dream-logic fraying. "You just said you didn't know why I was here, and now you're saying you summoned me?" I dropped my hand, pointing it at her. "Look, I'm a simple man. Just tell me what I need to do to make this whole nightmare stop."
"I don't know. You have no desires. You are unpredictable. Not exactly 'destiny' material."
"Seriously!? For fuck's sake, help me! Stop the bullshit!"
Her voice fractured into a chorus, a legion speaking as one. "As you wish." Her finger touched my forehead. The world convulsed, the ground cracking open and the ceiling raining down stone. The hurricane vanished, and in the sudden, silent dark, I could see them_the creatures lurking in the shadows. "Hunt your trolls."
"Which ones are they?"
"All of them. Thirty-one. You want one thing, and I want one thing. I have granted you sight in this realm. Unlike with Beatrix, we won't be making deals. We will be_friends." The word came out as a low, predatory growl. "You will come and go as you please, through any level of darkness. Revenge in exchange for endless knowledge. I don't know what you truly want, but this is what I have to offer."
"Alright," I snarled, a feral grin splitting my face. "Yeah. Fuck those motherfuckers."
"Go back. Release your inner demon. Only it can function here. You are merely human." Her fingers snapped.
I woke up in a Field of Reeds. Beatrix was sitting beside me. "Scared you good," she smirked.
"Yeah, you got me." A breeze sighed through the reeds, playing a touching melody. "What is all this? Why me?"
"Just accept it. Move on to the next step. Some questions are better left to fester."
A flash of blinding white light, and I landed back in reality so violently the chair flipped, dumping me on the floor. My head cracked against the hardwood, hard enough to draw blood. I was definitely hurt. Definitely awake. And it definitely didn't mean a goddamn thing. I was on a mission, apparently sent from Hell itself, a mission the dead girl never even wanted me on.
"I don't know. You have no desires. You are unpredictable. Not exactly 'destiny' material."
What the fuck does that even mean? That I'm a wildcard? Are deities just cosmic scientists, spit-balling theories? Are there really people who can just_defy fate? And why offer me a scenic right turn just before leaving me for dead in a swamp?
Plus. My shadow-self is always out? What the fuck did she mean by that? Or am I just another poser painting my face, playing at devil worship?
No. I'm me. I'm real. But what the hell is 'real' on a plane of dreams? And why would I hunt these trolls in my own mind and not online where they breed?