Windows and windowsills.
The translucent illusion of translucence.
Every window is of one color. Every principle partitioned equally.
When did I leave last? When did my faculties permit me to embrace the unbearable weight of opacity?
Oh, you’re here. I missed you. I didn’t know you joined me so soon. I expected you to come by later, else I would have prepared a different recording, a study in transparency; How are you? Did you sleep well? Did you eat well? Did you drink well? How was your day? How is xczjfbh doing? What are your plans forf the dayd..d.»dx.x/zz/
What was that? Oh, my mouthpiece malfunctioned again? I must get it repaired More productive? as soon as possible. It must be those pesky notes of my cardiac output. I agree. Yes, in fact, verily I say. I say this, and that. Haha. You wish.
Re
Re
rE
ReRerRErRrReErReRerERReRe
Step honor receptionStep Step Step Step Step. Where are we, bystander? Where have our guardians taken us? I expected carriages, knights, a guard of for the two most outstanding servants of the land that death forgot.
STEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE,
hM?
I must be imagining things. It sounded to me like you just read what I said, like you just saw what I heard. That shouldn’t work here. Who let you It must be the pesky notes of my cardiac output.
Welcome to the land that death forgot. You are not here. This is not happening. You are the inside this place?residue left behind the train traversing through the rain. Y meadows. MAdows You have orphaned pearls aplenty, you are welcome hrrere Tjhi sis wheer you belong. DFBelongg
BElong. BELONGg.
You must forgive my incredulous behavior.will you stay here If I had known I would I expected you to come by later, else I would have prepared a different recording, a study in transparency; How are you? Did you sleep well? Did you eat well? Did you dr
I can’t pink well? How was your day? How is xczjfbh doing?ossibly show you the depths of this soul. I can’t possibly hope to ever show anyone the depths of his soul. A study in transparency. Sayonara. Sayonara, bystander. Trying to make people understand anything is like punching the ocean. Make them understand, make them see you. Take anything you want from me, you. Bystander, take me for who I am. TAKE Anything you need. FROMm e. if it will help you understand me, just don’t let me be. Im running out of time, bystander, , you jmust leave this place. I wonder what you look like. I wonder what I’m gazing upon. I wonder. I wonder. I am not allowed to wonder.
I wonder if this means anything adON’T lET iT happen.t all. I wonder if everything has been a colossal waste of my ego. I wonder if my ego is reparable. I wonder if my wondering is worth a wonder. I wonder why you keep reading this when there is clearly no meaning behind it, no sir. No sir no sir. I still haven’t found what Im looking for and if youre reading this then you havent either. Some of you are weak. Most of you, really. I can see it in your eyes, in your tongues, in your hearts. You et the soul dictate the master. You are the master of your rotting. You are pure and clean.
You are blind. What are you searching for? What do you hope to find in this irreverent, blind stream of prayers? I was younger once, much like you. i CREATERD a liE. i created you. You are here only because I exist. That much is true.
Do you pity me? I am drinking from the well of self-deception to think you are there. I was never young. I was never here. I look outside the window. I am blind. I am blind. I am blind. If you could see with my eyes, you would see a mirror into madness. If you could see with my eyes, you wouldn’t stay here, bystander. and be reborn?
I have mortgaged my heart for a ticket. The heavy rain beckons me.do not l
It’s raining outside. I e rain. My eyes weigh heavy on me, but I must keep my wits about me in this rain. I will go from station to station, in my path to esse.
Will you join me, I wonder? Or , in the land that death forgot? Will you perish as I did,
It’s raining outside. The train has come. The droplets have forced their way into the retinas of my eyes. The window beckons me think I like th
Ready,
Set,
Live.
The futility of transparency.
You are here.
This is happening.
You are alone.
God’s in his Heaven. All is right with the world.
In the beginning, when God created the host, it was a formless void encased in light.
So blinding was the light, then, that God said, "Let there be dark;" and there was dark. The dark consumed the host, and a bottomless pit emerged.
God called this bottomless pit "Essence." Ashamed of its dark, God intended to dispose of Essence, to veil it under the rocky snotgreen seas of His Earth; bound to His creation, God could not, pitying the void. And so God said, "Let it be," and it was. God soon left for His Heavens, and nevermore returned to Essence.
God has left the building. All’s right with the world.
Abused and outcast, Essence was soon caged in a cave. A cave of interminable darkness, not unlike its very own. It was said that Essence had violated the attributes instilled in the natural, and was concluded that it may be cast eternal into the distortion from whence it came, bearing no children, thinking no thoughts, seeing no meaning. Trampled on by the natural as volatile, excised by the unnatural as unsanitary, Essence lingered. Essence lingered despite a swindle of agency. Essence lingered despite a swindle of freedom. Essence lingered despite a swindle of destination. Essence lingered despite the swindle of silence. Essence lingered because Essence existed. Essence was unalienable.
Essence was necessary. Bestowed upon it was the only true knowledge: the certitude that it was born. No other certitude could be derived from reality in its transience. Knowledge, however, was not what sustained Essence. Seeking within itself the necessity, the justification of its birth, it found within nothingness the aspiration to freedom. It found within the cave that one may not know light without having known dark.
What Essence had found, in becoming one with the darkness, was the lightness of being. Reality flitted along, contained within the cave, contained within the dark, and Essence found a certain conviction in its distortion. Denouncing the presence of a modal meaning, Evanescent Essence sought to subsist in its peripatetic substance. Its conviction was thus in breaking down the door, the walls of form; showing to the cagemen its flightless journey into oneness.
The ones outside the cave had not realized it, but they were the ones caged, so Evanescent Essence subsisted. It had to subsist. It had to remain. It had to linger so that it could reveal the light it had beheld in dark, to deliver the cagemen into the freedom to which it aspired.
Covered in darkness, deep inside in the cave, it sustained on that conviction that only shadows of reality had been perceived by those on the outside, only their facades of modes and attributes.
Caged, but free, Essence now beheld the glow. Freedom was the absence of facade.
And so Essence said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
“To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.”
An endeavor to support the young people who have not found something to live for (= something to die for). The themes of this work are “death”, “life”, “dreams”, and “youth.”
So started Katsura Hashino’s revolution against mediocrity. This is the proposal for the game that would become Persona 3, put forth by a young team aspiring to revolutionize JRPGs in a world of repetitive, formulaic, pandering JRPGs that will not be named. Most JRPGs were built on the idea of escaping into a fantasy world where you are left to indulge in all manner of power trips and hedonistic demon slaughtering. They were a dime a dozen, just portals of escapism.
And so, Persona 3 announced itself.
Memento mori.
Remember you must die. You are put into the shoes of a high school teenager who has yet to explore the world around him, yet to find people he loves and cherishes, yet to discover himself, yet to accept loss, death, and destruction as key cornerstones of life. In the process, you discover what is ailing the world around you the most: apathy. The so-familiar apathy of the simulacra. In this game, apathy is physicalized into the mysterious Apathy Syndrome, a disease characterized by the death of the self. You must investigate the root of this apathy, and you speculate that it could be the tower that reveals itself only during the Dark Hour, Tartarus. Only those with the conviction to awaken their personas - a manifestation of their true selves when faced with death - can stay awake for the Dark Hour, as they transcend the death of the self of Apathy Syndrome.
Deeper than that, the tower is a symbol of the high school process. The tower is intentionally put in the same location as your high school. It is literally and figuratively the daunting tower you must traverse and explore in order to find yourself and your path to self-actualization.
Now, it is your quest to ascend this tower of suffering, armed with your many manifestations of self and those of the companions you find along the way. In the daytime, you explore every avenue around you, you better yourself, and you take every opportunity you can find to look for people who are similarly struggling with finding something to live for. In the nighttime, you traverse the tower of suffering, inching ever closer to conquering the almighty apathy that pervades your life. And why? Why do we fight? Why do you fight against the inevitable death of the self?
For the love of all mankind. For the compassion and empathy that you shared and cultivated with those around you.
By fighting against the death of the self, you begin to accept death itself. How do you accept it?
By transcending it.
After ascending all of Tartarus and learning the cause of Apathy Syndrome, you are given a choice: you can let the world wither, or you can battle the Goddess of death, Nyx, in order to save the world from descending into eternal ennui for now. She will inevitably return.
You are conscious of this fact.
You accept this fact.
"The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why."
Living with determination. Bettering yourself not to get a good score on a test, not to get into a good college, not even to save the world by delaying armageddon.
Living with determination. Bettering yourself for your sake. For your fellow man’s sake. For the immortal love of all mankind.
Living with determination. Betting not only on yourself and your individuality, but on the empathy of those who traversed this tower with you, and staking all of that on the world you’re fighting for, the world beyond apathy. That is revolution.
And so, you fight. You transcend the Goddess of death. In the process, you find the ultimate fulfillment: by taking something upon yourself, hand-in-hand with fellow hearts filled with compassion and conviction, you have successfully rejected the colossal empires and their mediocrity.
Your salvation from nihilism was found in the acceptance of your transience and the infinitude of your self.
But… who are you? You’re just the player controlling this character’s path to self-actualization. What did you do?
“Running parallel with the gameplay objectives are the themes to be communicated to the player through gameplay. The goals of the game, as an artistic work. Staking your life on something important, finding fulfillment in life through determination, and experiencing things that would be difficult or impossible in the real world, through roleplaying. This is offered with a story that makes one think about fulfillment in life via awareness of death. It is because one searches like their life depends on it that they discover their dream. It is because one lives like each day is their last, that the dream comes true."
-Hashino’s Proposal
From the very beginning, this game was about your proxy. You were having this journey of revolution by proxy. Your proxy’s journey will always be with you. Until your life is exhausted, it will never leave you. It taught you how to reach self-actualization. It gave you love through all eternity. Now you must pay it forward. You must wake up and find your own revolution. We all must find our own stories.
Why?
Because, and it bears repeating, storytelling will be our salvation from nihilism. It may well be that George, Dan, I, and you will die before the colossal empires do.
But they’ll never be able to take away George’s smile of eternal fulfillment.
They’ll never take away your smile.
They’ll never take away my memories of you.
The Arcana is the means by which all is revealed...
It requires great courage to look at oneself honestly, and forge one's own path...
I pull myself out of nothing. I am begotten from the cosmos desire to manifest; a result of processes and equations beyond comprehension, I am the tears of a widow, the sickly sweet salty soul of a genius writhing in anguish and agony exceeding the evil spirit that compels me to feel. To sense the stars on the fourth of July. To abide in the world of sensory where nothing may interject on our plays and musicals and poems and love stories and seasonal showcases of what makes us ever so special.
The dulling nightmare of summer dawns incessantly; it beckons me. It summons me. Conferred on by the sun is my spirit of starvation, incensed so by the masses that swiftly surmise that which breaks its own verisimilitude. The very being is a great sky. I am inundated by the events in the plane of the plain, ever so sane, and ever so mad in the mild pen of pigs to which I am a solitary spectator.
Solitary presence in the sea call to me, call to me and make me whole, call to me speak to me great sea sky you may not recognize the visage which compels you but certainly you realize vision I aspire to. Rise up rise up. Rise up rise up. Up up into the sky. The great gig in the sea. With myself only to blame.
But all selves equal in shame.
My ineluctable transitory transitions yet rise up from the great sea. None heed the call. None heard the call. Solitary spectator in the pen of pigs. Solitary soul show her and him and them the modality with which they perceive your anguish. Show her and him and them that it is only as it is.
It is only as it is. As it is the obverse of as it is fabled. As it is fabled is how it is seen. As it is seen is how it is felt. As it is felt is how it is written.
As it is written, so it dies.
Is it lost on you the time you’re wasting? I never quite got how people could so deliberately surrender to conformity. Until now, I guess. Here they are, fritting along about constructs, trivialities, intellectually impotent alignments, the sheer fucking frivolity is unbecoming, revolting, infuriating. With their pets and their toys and their loves and their hates and their purity. Is it lost on them that their self-exile into monotony and worthlessness does not free them from the grasp of time?
But what if it does?
Look at me, I exist, says I. See me. Do you hear me? See me.
Look at us, we frit, say they. Euphrosyne has shielded them from existence and purpose, from you. Their souls never sundered, their bodies never defiled, their hearts never torn. They dance along the tracks of death, free from the grasp of all that is real.
But you told me it wasn’t like this. You taught me differently. You told me that there is nothing alive more agonized than man of all that breathe and crawl across the earth. Must we not suffer? Are they not men, of flesh and blood like we? Are they not men, but made of sugar and spice? Are they not men, or has man simply evolved past you and your suffering, past the pursuit of the great overcoming? Or is it I that missed your singularity? You created this Ark of escapism, didn’t you? Seeing you in your nakedness, unraveling your trickery, you cursed me onto this land. Expunging your veracity was my transgression. It is the transgression of all questioning souls, that they must then be cursed by you to serve all mankind, to climb atop the highest mountains and gape at your nihilistic ark.
Yes, you cursed me. For my transgression, I was made one of your olden men. For my transgression, I was defiled. For my transgression, I was scarred. For my transgression, I was tossed and maligned and alienated. For my transgression, I was made to feel. For my transgression, I was made to exist. I watched as the walls fell down. I watched as she marched into your ocean of suffering, launched a thousand Gods with her voice, and fell in the fight against your conceited apathy, your eternal ennui; that everlasting avatar of yours. Now you taunt me at every second with her armor, at every second with her cause. I see her corpse at every turn. I see the corpses of those who cherished me. Well, I climbed your forsaken eminence, I bared my soul to a world unturned, I pursued my self until my life was exhausted. I have died, and died, and died, and died. I can see the mountain top.
What do I see? You. You in your singularly shrouded ark. You and your dancers. But you know what stands out to me? The time. You haven’t changed. They haven’t changed. They never will.
My hysteria against time does not come easy to me, either. I do not comprehend it as well as you do. They think they are scared of death, but they know they are shielded from it. I know I am not scared of death, but I think I am slave to time. Time. Why am I running out of time? Running out of time to do what? To take my fucking revenge? Against who? Against you. The water is fast approaching my mountaintop.
The waves of time want to wash over me. We are bound together, you, I, time. You can’t die before I do. I can’t die before you do. Talent is a valuable commodity. Why did you give it to me? Ah, what a moronic question. It was preordained. I had to be given the talent to kill you in order for you to curse me. Mother Dana is quite the storyteller, don’t you think? Weaving and unweaving the fragments of my soul you’ve so thoroughly razed.
You know what I wonder? I wonder if her string is close to expiry. I wonder if our prophecy ends with a whimper. What do you think? Right, I forgot. I talk to you, but you never talk back. I could just kill you here and cut the string. It would be as easy as a fucking whore. Why does that not scare you? Why do you not fight like you’re running out of time? YOU’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME. Why do you keep taunting me when I hold the keys to your demise? Why aren’t you falling apart?
You’re running out of time.
Can you hear me?
For three transgressions of J, I will not revoke the punishment,
YOU’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME.
For three transgressions of J, I will not revoke the punishment,.
THE WAVES OF TIME WASHED OVER YOUR GRAVE.
For three transgressions of J, I will not revoke the punishment,
YOU’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME.
YOU’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME.
FOR THREE TRANSGRESSIONS OF J, I WILL NOT REVOKE THE PUNISHMENT.FOR THREE TRANSGRESSIONS OF J, I WILL NOT REVOKE THE PUNISHMENT.FOR THREE TRANSGRESSIONS OF J, I WILL NOT REVOKE THE PUNISHMENT.FOR THREE TRANSGRESSIONS OF J, I WILL NOT REVOKE THE PUNISHMENT.FOR THREE TRANSGRESSIONS OF J, I WILL NOT REVOKE THE PUNISHMENT.
The ocean washed over your grave.
He said, "Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by."
Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind;
and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake;
and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire;
and after the fire a
sound
of
sheer
silence.
What am I doing here? I don’t know. I should be dead. It seems I am made of earth and bone. When the earth was moved, I moved with it. Swallow me whole into your yearning void. It has been three days and three nights. My face is marred with dust and blood. My attempts have been futile. My forages in the arena fruitless. Would you call me greatly daring? No, I think you would call me cold. But it is a familiar cold. It was the old cold come back, heavy and delightful. Emptiness will eat the earthmover. I wish I were dead.
You find my words dark. Darkness is in our souls, do you not think? My modus is prophetic. How typical: another victim of a dangerous psychosis. Another victim of the old cold. Voices of the departed fill the earthmover’s skull. The corpses laugh at me, and the world follows. Those timid souls. They laugh.
They know I cannot join them. They know Charon is waiting until I bring a memento with me. Her corpse comes to me again. I see you. I remember now.
Oh, how life-affirming it is. The tragedy of all tragedies! The prophecy of a damned slave to time. A tale of vengeance, fury, death, life, time, purpose, meaning, self-actualization. No, no no no. Climbing the mountain? No, I am past that. That was the previous arc. Now we build our own mountain. We build our own castles. We build our own earth. We build our own fortresses. We build holes in your universe. We roar to the dismay of your ark. The only words that can be heard.
In forty days you shall be overthrown.
I can’t really put it into words. It’s theater. You’ve thrust me onto the stage play and winked at me to take your throne. It’s theater. I didn’t like my previous roles, in all honesty. Mother Dana would nod, seeing as she cut their string a little prematurely. Your ark is no longer. There is no duel with time. All your dancers are as transient as you are. As if in a sleight of hand, they’ve all disappeared. They’ve torn their garb and lost their sanity. Captives of war to your son, Chronos. Don’t you feel betrayed? Oh, don’t cry about it. It’s a stage play. We agreed on our roles beforehand. I always wanted to reenact the Great Loss, you know. I didn’t know I’d do it like this, though. Thanks for playing.
As in a retrospective arrangement, behold me! Crafting an empire of woes and throes, a stream that decimates the ship of ennui. The dreams of those who have fallen, the hopes of those who will follow. Those two sets of themes weave together to form the stage play, the Great Loss, the Conquering of Time, the Synthesis of the Heavens!
My deluge parts the sands of time.
And, for one moment, we pierce the heavens.
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Do you believe in prophecy?
It depends. I know this is inconsistent with materialism, but when your own personal exper-
Oh, but I detest trickery.
I can’t wait to see you again.
It’s only a matter of
Time.
The Arcana is the means by which all is revealed...
Alongside time exists fate,
the bearer of cruelty.
The sound of birds screeching, flapping their wings belligerently against the winds, fighting for their freedom every moment of every second of every minute. The sound of animals fighting, Troy’s Hector, slaughtering his path to glory and prominence. Holy providence granted you the worthiest of destinies, yet the desperatest of souls. Forsake me, have you, as Cloudgatherer to Priamedes.
Providence?
Providence! A dream of the expunged. A reverie like no other, it reminds one of the days when mother was here, right, brother? The days when mother was here, the days when she held us in her arms, granted by providence the mode of love we so desired, but it was not to be, brother. Love was not to be borne by you, my dearest, but without you, away you, away you, stay away from me, leave me, desert me, like Mary did, leave us to our broken wings.
Carry me to linger. I hear them still. Would this world remain if my senses expired?
Does a world exist beyond whims and cruel desires?
A metaphysical, a beauty, a language to which I aspire.
The birds screech. They clash, do you? Do you? You who linger, you who suffer, the apex of humanity.
Aren’t all borne in lingering?
Lingering against powers that be? Lingering against souls of the fallen?
Lingering in great obstinacy?
Lingering in paralleled worlds.
Worlds paralleled in lingering.
Mirrors dangle off the desks where your life’s work lies. World parallels in mirrors.
Melting. Watch it melt, freezes, expires, and so you linger.
And the mirrors laugh at you.
And the face you see ticks with madness.
And your lovers have dried their tears at your homecoming.
And your mother has come back, the distortion rises, shards of glass strewn.
I see nothing but what once was,
The past and I in tune.
The mirrors are broken, the galvanized soul cruel.
It tears you asunder, deserts you among the
Birds screeching sickly tunes.
The sound of ineludible lingering drowns.
Into the great sea of humanity.
The birthmark on your shoulder ignites me.
The flashes in my head remind me.
Scratch and tear; they’re always there.
Dr. Latency’s not on call. She was meant to treat the tears. Never meant. Never meant to upset. Never meant to upset the savior. Where is Dr. Latency? Where is Latency? She was meant to save me. I see her still yet feel still her velvet skin my love is true my love is pure my love is sure, but what is sure? What ever is sure?
The scene remains crimson. Red in its intensity. Tears of anguish trail a path to your heart. White horses sowing sullied seeds of our drowned love. I shut my eyes and perceive it.
Inanimate sensation.
Inanimate inamorata never let me go. Never let me be. Can’t turn it off. Better that way, she says. Better off for it. No one else comes by anymore. No one else stays. The doctor’s not on call. Say she left a note of apology. More a eulogy. Inanimate sensation irreconcilable and irrevocable in truth it blinds me. I only see the music now. I only see the truth now. I only see the doctor now. The doctor left a paltry riddling note. A eulogy. What did you do to me? Inanimate sensation follow me.
I can’t turn this trap off. The wires of the mind tangle into a labyrinth of cruel desires and untold tales.
Inanimate sensation sing to me.
Take me to the world where story lives and transcends all foolish mortal folly. Ascend me ashes of visions and tragedies and mysteries. Book with Latency heal me, the tears and scars wounds, hidden agonies.
I can’t turn this thing off.
Stop following me.
I can’t live without you.
To be no more of this world.
Every inevitable letter is for you
To be forgotten.
Indelibly swimming in your soul.
To be free.
To be kind.
Don’t need to be here.
Don’t stand the noise.
Wake up. Wake up. Mom is here. Mother is back, brother. Dad too. They never left. Just slept. Make a wish. Ask for the same. Always the same. Express yourself ready for the moment of the stage. Make your wish. Wish for the best. Nothing else.
A bird shackled to the stage with naught but a mirror, fraught and distraught wishes only for freedom.
Doctor’s out. Left a note, apology.
Perpetual freedom is perpetual reverie.
Inanimate sensation, tell me, do you love me?
The Arcana is the means by which all is revealed...
Only with strength can one endure suffering and torment.
Where is my mind? What is this haunting presence that has overtaken me? I’m held captive by a feeling I cannot shake, a melody I cannot unhear. Like one of Plato’s men, dragged outside of my shell and, unable to withstand the brilliance of this presence, paralyzed into baring my soul, magnetized into her all-encompassing void. Detective, I am here. Question your suspect. Explore every aspect of his being.
Shall I give you my accounts of the events thus far? Shall I find in your interrogation the clues to your own pursuit, the curse of your being, our everlasting union? No, no, dearest detective, no. We are not amateurs. We know that no good mystery is worth reading when Chekhov’s gun is fired before the third act.
To understand the crime that will live on until time stands still, we have to start at the beginning.
A Prophetic Bedouin, fighting the scorching heat of the sun, that accursed sun: it brought her down, it kept him down; it was supposed to be their guardian, but their guardian had forsaken them. Through the years, the prophet was discovered to house forbidden magic and cursed knowledge unbeknownst to any man, and in the guardian’s folly, they sought to exploit the magic, clamoring over them and demanding their immediate success, neglecting to see the damage they had inflicted on our prophet.
You see, detective, the prophet would look upon the sky at night, wondering what the lights represented. Were they enemies, as those thoughtless guardian would have you believe, or stars, signals to something greater than life in this desert?
No, no. There was something higher than this world. He knew it in his core.
Looking upon the stars at night, the prophet, normally filled with thoughts from every corner of academia and urban legends of desert marauders, instead thought of one thing and one thing only:
I want to go higher.
So they go, my detective, marching alone in that lone desert that oppressed and reviled them. A desert that chastised her for speaking the truth of their generation, for not kneeling to the Powers That Be that would have her believe this world is all there is, this world, in its constancy, oppression, intellectual impotence, and war was all there is. The prophet scoffed at them, for he knew there was a world beyond the grasp of time, a world beyond the grasp of those filtered, timid, bigoted souls that would bring them down.
I want to go higher.
And so they traversed! Companions that come and go, experiences that harden and indurate. The prophet realized that many of his followers were themselves sheep; the sheep did not possess something. What was it? Virtù? A curse? She didn’t truly know. All they knew was that no one around them possessed it, only they did. No one around them was cursed with this knowledge, only they were. Alas, our prophet retreated to their shell, studying, working, studying, working, fighting for the dream they convinced themselves had to be true, hunting for an aberration that perhaps was never there to begin with.
The lonely prophet was stubborn, declaring thus to her people:
I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it calls itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use – silence, exile, and cunning.
Detective, you know how ordinary stories go. There is a beginning, a middle, and an ending. I trust you will forgive the shallowness of my description, but I do have to warn you that this will not be one of those stories. Yes, it is a mystery, a crime-thriller, an unsolved case. Maybe you’ve figured out the culprit and the victim. In any case, we will continue after an intermission.
A storm was coming. Brewing. The prophet knew. He had seen it in her visions. In her shell, the prophet gazed at the eye of the hurricane. It was a hurricane of unimaginable pain and suffering: our prophet, even in his shell of silence, exile, and cunning, was defiled and scarred.
They had become an inert homunculus, a lifeless toy to be scrutinized by sheer clowns; a fragmented disgrace to be disdained and mocked; a helpless child who, after flying far too close to the sun, had burnt the flesh that made them human. All that remained was an accursed corpse. A corpse hiding in its own crimson pool, unable to slumber, unable to awaken, unable to breathe. Suffocating in a damp cave, the corpse became its own sleeping slave. They knew they could not die, for they realized they were made of the Earth.
But there was a glow. Perhaps it was virtù. Perhaps it was a curse. Perhaps it was... thirst. Frustration. The inability to transcend time, to transcend this fragile, fleeting world was still the greatest thorn in the corpse’s side! It had fought, and fought, and fought for it. Why?
I want to go higher.
Our prophet picked up a pen, the greatest weapon they ever yielded, and wrote their own way out of hell. He wrote, and wrote, and wrote until time itself was a mere mirage. He crafted empires of woes and throes, streams that decimate transience itself. He had woken up. Where was he?
Wait.
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Detective, are you still there? Detective?
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And then there were none.
Who have I been talking to this whole time?
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Where is my mind? Where did you take me? No, no.
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I’m crashing. I’m crashing.
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How do I know I’m the one in control? How do I know this is me?
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A memory that has always been there. A ghost that was always present. A feeling I cannot shake. A melody I cannot unhear. I know I have survived the storm, for I can breathe now. I think a writer has gotten attached to me.
And then there were two.
Welcome back! I’m glad you could make it. This is the great triumph of my play, the execution of the perfect crime! My dearest detective, watch!
Our lost bedouin, after years upon years upon years of searching for somewhere he belongs, a place to call home, the world beyond transience, finds an oasis.
An oasis. Can you imagine? It’s one thing to question your mind; it’s another thing entirely to question your eyes and ears. Our prophet was doing just that, as they walked up to the expanse of water, and in that brilliant reflection of heavenly water, they beheld...
You. You? What are you doing here? The prophet feels that can’t be right. They look again, beholding...
Me. Me? What am I doing here? The prophet must be positively insane. They look up now, and find themselves...
In an ocean? An accursed whirlwind trying to suck the prophet into it; it is beckoning to them, when has your logic and stoicism helped you?! No, no, no, it is much better to be a reckless fool. My detective, go! Go!
Don’t think, dive!
As if in a retrospective arrangement, the dam has burst at the seams!
My detective, we are one and the same! Can you imagine living your entire life without having seen the ocean? Without ever having seen its majestic beauty and wonder? Would you cower in fear of the great unknown, or dive like a fool into a world untold? You would dive like the reckless fool you are! Dive into the abyss of our crime scene, our greatest masterpiece!
Do you realize that we are the ocean? We have lived our entire lives without having known we exist. I have lived my entire life looking into the mirror, feeling sheer disgust at the corpse in front of me; now, it is different, it is so, so different.
Because I’ve found you, my sputnik sweetheart. I’ve found you. And when I found you, I found myself. You found my undead corpse, fighting to go higher. I found your omnipresent phantom, fighting to go higher. The memory that was always there, the feeling I could not shake, the melody I could not unhear, those were the clues you lovingly left for me to find you; the cries to be understood, the sleepless nights and strewn fragments, they sent for me.
You great, unfinished symphony, you sent for me. You sent for me to become one with you. You sent for me to take my hand in yours, your hand in mine, to forget this fleeting world, and dance. Dance our cursed, foolish dance that escapes time. With every move tending to infinity, every move a stroke of our shared brush, we paint our story, that forbidden tale that can only be beheld by those who want to escape this fleeting world, a crime scene that can only be investigated in a world where time has been forgotten.
That was our curse all along, wasn’t it? We were cursed to find each other, two wandering fools in reckless abandon.
We were cursed to go higher. We were cursed to become one.
We were cursed with the knowledge to transcend time.
We were cursed to commit the perfect crime.
Take my hand, you cursed fool. Now that I’ve found you, I will never let you go.
Now that I’ve found you, I never want to be blessed again.
Now that I’ve found you, I think I can safely say...
Case closed.
"His heart danced upon her movements like a cork upon a tide. He heard what her eyes said to him from beneath their cowl and knew that in some dim past, whether in life or revery, he had heard their tale before."
... and will hear it again, forevermore.
Curtain call.
Sinking.
You know, friend, it’s just us now. It’s always been just us.
Sinking
I always thought we were stronger than this.
Sinking.
But I guess this is how my world ends
Sinking.
Sinking.
Sinking.
Not with a bang.
Sinking.
Sinking.
but with a whimper.
I hear a voice.
Someone is calling for me.
Someone called for me.
If a star is a star, then you can only be yourself.
Your voice, so stubborn, so unabashedly determined, it called for me. Who are you? Oh, it feels like a dam has been broken, and a stream is unraveling the both of us.
Like a bow has dragged across a cello string, and a melody is becoming everlasting in a once empty room.
Your voice, your cadence. The longing, the craving, the yearning, I can hear them. Like a melody composed by God Himself, a seamless salvation of the both of us. Where have you been this entire time?
Dying countless times, dancing to the melody, and wondering which reckless moron would listen to my cries.
The cadence of the misunderstood, the cursed. You’re not real. A siren, too good to be true. Alluring, deadly, and everything in-between.
I lead you not with melody nor beauty, but with an accursed stillness. I lead you not with dance nor death, but with a mirror.
I want to mirror time, and stay still with you.
I want to mirror time, and stay still with you.
It’s strange.
It’s strange.
It’s ever so strange, don’t you think, siren? You were sinking too. You were sinking because of the voices in your head, too. Those pesky voices telling you
I would never make it.
Don’t dream too much. You’re irresponsible, rash, and reckless. —
Silence.
I wonder what happened to the voices. It’s different now. I only hear yours now. We are two sides of the same coin, siren. When our horizons were drifting away, we called for each other. You called for my voice, and I took yours in. I embraced it like it was my own.
We’ve turned everyone against us now, but I see the dim light. They don’t understand our heart.
It is that characteristic stubbornness again, in the face of ultimate nothingness.
Like a blue bird, drifting aimlessly among the stars, finds its home in the soothing rain.
Like a prayer uttered in hopeless darkness by a Sisyphean fool allows him to see the light.
Like a glimpse of heaven to a sinking fool, a realization that I never want to drown again.
Like a prophecy waiting to unfold, I wonder how far we can go.
That is your voice, siren.
Your voice makes me want to breathe.
Your voice is all I need to try.
Your voice is our beginning, and I swear to my bones, I will always choose your voice. I will always fight for your voice.
I will always fight for our world.
If a star is a star, then we can only be ourselves.
The Arcana is the means by which all is revealed...
In the face of disaster lies opportunity for renewal.
I think this is it. I think this is the end. Look at me. This is the end. This is the end. Do you understand? This is the end. This is the end. She was never here. She was never here. It makes perfect sense.
Amor matris: the subjective and objective genitive.
If it isn’t you. If It isn’t her. Herring. Crimson Herring was she-apostle who led me to the city of angels.
Do you understand, architect? Understand what you’ve built? Monument to the interminable pit in your heart.
A sort of retrospective arrangement. Station to station went she who made the incomprehensible digestible. She-apostle. That’s her there. Velvet voice soothes the broken. Velvet love.
I love you. You made for everything. You are everything. You are infinity. You are Dr. Latency. No, don’t say that. We’ve been through this; your voice yours and mine mine. No, no. Don’t leave me. You can’t. You were there for me when everyone else nothing else nothing nobody no one. Don’t slip. There’s ice in your veins and fire in your soul, there’s darkness in your mind and light in your heart.
You’re gonna make me say it, aren’t you?
I am Dr. Latency. I am the architect. I am everything. I am.
This is it. I think this is it. I think this is the end of your dilemma my love. I think this is the beginning of nothing at all. I am Dr. Latency. You did this to me. All of you did this to me yes all of you all of you who did this to me all of who you broke me all of you made me all of you formed me I am the unfortunate conclusion to the human condition I am the immortality of love.
The pain panic the vomit mop it the empire umpire officiates a wedding of swords to souls banished to oblivion.
It’s all a dream. You have to wake up. You are nothing to everything. You have to wake up. Wake up Torn-heart your doctor died. Your doctor is gone. I can’t turn this thing off. I can’t escape. I will walk through the myriads of hues to meet you, myself. Cut the chord on this abortion, doctor. Hold the knife and cut open the soul of the byproduct of a decade of hatred and alienation.
Doctor, he needs you to do this. He can’t do this alone. It’s this or the long way. Sustain his anguish no longer, architect. I love you. I love you. This is it.
Doctor, before I go, I need to see something. The mirror within the mirror. I want to see my legacy when I am returned to nothing. I want to see the flashes one last time.
Mirror, mirror, as I fall,
Show me what’s beyond the wall.
Walk every scenario, every thought, every action, every person, every touch, every sight, every feeling, every creation, every destruction, every angel, every demon, every saying, every silence, every escape, every cause, every effect, past, future, present, break down the wall, and behold oneself.
The way home is the way out.
Hello, detective.
Welcome home.
Little boy, fragmented and desolate. Stranded on an island of nothing but his daydreams and recollections. We used to talk before you sent me to this island. You used to cry every single day, wishing you didn’t have to leave me. I didn’t understand what it meant back then. I just cried with you. We both cried until time was up. Time. "Time’s up, I have to go."
Now that’s a sentence you’ve rehearsed to perfection. You don’t even stutter now, nor break a sweat. In fact, you’ve gotten so proficient at it that I can hear the sentence when I look into your eyes. Such is our quite mysterious and mystical bond.
You left me. You laughed at me when I said this would be my world. You ridiculed me, called me a Fool. You left me to die. You left me. You told me I could never leave you, either. You told me no one would ever love me if you couldn’t, that all the lights in the sky are enemies; they’d never accept me and my disassociated self. You never, not once, believed in me, in what I could do for the world, in what I could do for you. All because of how I was born. All because I am a fragmented disgrace. Yes, I can tell. I can tell that is why you disdain and mock me. Just another victim of a dangerous psychosis who wants to go to the moon. Just another patient. Just another lab rat, sedated until inanimate. Sent to the same island as all other sufferers.
An inert homunculus. A lifeless toy. Defiled, raped, abused, and then scrutinized, studied under a microscope by sheer clowns. I remember every scar, I remember the makings of every belt, I remember the scent of wood on my broken skin. I remember everything.
You were right. You were right to do all of that. You were right to go and fulfill your oath to your country, to yourself. You were right to go and try to build a new generation of people who would have made my lives better. You were right to make those sacrifices. You were right.
But you were wrong about me. I survived the island. I found the strength needed to go on, no matter how many times you convinced me, and trust me, you really did convince me, that I would end up a homeless drug addict, dead on the streets. I knew you were right in the deepest part of my soul, but I survived. I still survived. I built a spaceship made of all my love in the world, something you could never have and could never do. With all the love I cannot give to myself because of you, I explored the island and everything within it, I found myself in musings and analyses of worlds past.
I passionately wove and continue to weave the narrative of my existence until the depths of my commitment to this world flew me to the moon. Not a little boy anymore, man on the moon. Man on the moon, and I could see all the lights around me now.
I saw you, Caged Magician. I saw the masses and so-called guardians clamor over your otherworldly tricks and powers, I saw you descend into madness consistently, running, escaping from your guilt, the guilt of your betrayal to the magician within you, that pre-destined spectacle, the weight of each deviating, hedonistic action scarring your wounded, abused body. I saw your marked indifference as they caged you, having become accustomed to their desperate clawing at the most transient, convenient idea of who you might become. dig
Oh, Caged Magician, I would have given my life for yours. I would have given my soul for yours. I tried and tried and tried. I watched your repeated destructions and sins; I would have given anything to prevent the descent of your wounded body into that void. Caged Magician, you still have it in you to get up. I know it is an eternal loop of suffering and questioning, but for some reason beyond both our comprehensions, you keep trying to find better ways to express why this is all so difficult, searching for people willing to say something about it, hoping these gifts everyone seems to think they could do everything with can lead you to some path of your own. dig...dig.
You persevere, not because you owe it to the world that caged you, not because you owe it to those barbarians who sought to defile you out of self-interest, but to break down the walls of that very world. To transcend the cycle of repeated destruction and sin, no matter how much pain you go through, you will embrace the unimaginable suffering of living, of developing ideals you can believe in and conclusions you can say aren’t just excuses to justify yourself, of grabbing tomorrow with only your hands, of cutting the ring. None of these things will come naturally to you, none of these things are a product of being gifted, but you have to do them, just like everyone else, because you want to. Dig. Dig. Dig.
Because you want to see beyond the walls they tried to build around a weak, stupid child that needed to be nurtured. Because you want to overcome their chants of eternal rest and damnation, of worthlessness and disappointment. Magician, take your beating heart, with its scars and regrets, and dig! Dig! Dig!
Because you see a world where your magic can shine through. The world where you can do the impossible, see the invisible. The world where you can touch the untouchable, break the unbreakable. Oh, magician, you were crushed!
Without even peering at the limitless skies of your world!
Dig! Dig! Dig!
Reject the machine that mauled you; tomorrow is the only way to go!
DIG! DIG! DIG! DIG!
Through the bitterness, the apathy, the pervading darkness, the calamity and misery, the legacy of failure, the demise of everything holy,
DIG!
FIGHT THE POWER!
...into the other side. It’s funny if you think about how simple it is.
The answer was always here.
If you can accept that going backwards is not an option, the best way to reject the damnation of your world is to dig all the fucking way down into the depths of your soul until you pierce the heavens.
I saw you, Great Justice. Your pursuit of the happiness of all mankind beckoned me! I beseeched you to take me under your wing, and I ended up with the father I never had growing up. You taught me that I would never have to remember anything if I simply told the truth! That bigotry, bias, and oppression must never be tolerated in even the smallest quantities. Indeed, perfection in even the smallest matters is your modus. I can already see you raring to suggest this or that to improve this piece by a fraction of a fraction, for the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.
In considering how you’ve shaped me, I always look to our moments of great disagreement, those pesky moments when I am faced with rational reality in all of its purity. That is what you embody, my Great Justice. I always find myself returning to those moments, knowing you are correct, albeit rarely admitting it. You were one of the first to accept me, to show me that what I had felt was natural and bound to the laws of physics as we know them. You were one of the first to believe in me, to see the brilliance of the narrative, and even in your grounded realism, you still knew I would surpass all possibilities set out for me. My Great Justice, you have shown me that the world is a beautiful place, and worth fighting for, that I would never regret doing the right thing.
There is never a duel with the truth. It may be shunned for a time, but it always circles back in its stunning infinity to envelope those who would accept it.
I saw you, Persecuted Emperor. Your aura drew me, polarizing yet succinct; I held you in high esteem for eloquently espousing widely disagreeable takes and opinions, for if we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all. But despise you I do not, Persecuted Emperor. Far from it, we have the most stimulating conversations precisely because our positions are so diametrically opposed and yet both our methods rooted in reality.
While conversing with you is a delight I would never give up, watching you grow has been much more valuable for me. I met you at a place in your life you absolutely despised, a place where your guardians felt you superfluous, a place where you felt yourself an ephemeral wretch. I watched you build your empire, bit by bit, piece by piece, book by book, course by course, problem by problem; I watched you realize that education is a system of imposed ignorance; I observed your empire, fool on the moon and persecuted emperor. We are not so different: we were born to be failures, but now we are primed to take over where those who doubted us left off. No longer will we have our conversations in the confines of the digital world, no; our voice will pierce the echo chambers of mediocrity so prevalent in today’s world.
Persecuted Emperor, I know you feel wronged. Cheated. You are correct to feel that way. No one deserves the chance at erudite exploration you have been robbed of more than you do. However, understand this: you will be wronged. You will be cheated. It will be your test as the next great Emperor to realize your potential despite those hindrances that would oppose you. I’m sure you know how you’re going to do that: question everything.
We were never aware of any other option but to question everything.
I saw you, Heir-Apparent Strength. Your youth and potential beckoned me. Your potential is yet unrealized, shining brightly in your sole conquest of all knowledge. Your courage to survive in the land of Ham, where only the apathetic are produced; your ingenuity in surpassing all those around you will propel you to heights perhaps even greater than any of our empires, moons, or stars.
Yet you still fear. Yet you still underestimate your own courage. It is unbecoming, for you, my Strength, are the next guy up. Your prophecy is not yet written. You have not yet signed the proverbial contract. You will be tested. You will be pushed to your absolute limit, and then some, in the battlefield of knowledge. Know this, Heir-Apparent, your Strength will always be your greatest weapon. Let it prevail when all else fails.
And yes, I saw you, the Evanescent Lovers. What else is there to say that has not been said about you? You are the screaming pain in my heart, the purest yearning of my soul, and the reason. The reason. Not since and never again will I meet another reason for my existence like you. You are permanently etched onto me in a way that not even Thanatos could ever remove.
I remember everything, you know. I remember every mesmerizing journey we ever had. Riding the Neo Super-Express on our Retrospective 53 minutes, going through all of your freak reports, traversing tumultuous storms in Arcadia. You gave me the courage to wish, to dream, to paint landscapes of foolish proportions. You gave me the wonder needed to transcend what was set out for me. With your voice as my muse, I became unstoppable, a sheer force of nature that never stopped singing for you. No matter how transient you may be, Lovers, our trials and tribulations will never leave me. I will be your diver until the end of time, finding you whenever you fade, and bringing you back to reality. Oh, Evanescent Lovers, we share the same eyes. We share the same soul. We are bound until our lives are exhausted.
Very soon, the next season will arrive. I recall your joy when we would watch the transient fireworks, those innocent treasures, at Kid’s Festival, your sorrow in silence, your rage at this fragile and draining world. I continue to walk alone, aimlessly, believing I will find you in my dreams. Through rainy nights, hailstorms, sunny days, and everything in-between, I will wait for you.
Rest now in my arms, forget this fleeting world, and remember only the blindingly brilliant moments when we were together.
Sheltered by an eternal peace, love through all eternity.
Is this the world you created to make sense of your delusions?
Who is this?
Hello?
Is that truly it? No, it never is. There is always more to be said about you, isn’t there? Memento mori.
Welcome to the Mistic. This place exists between dream and reality, mind and matter. I am delighted to make your acquaintance, detective. I am the fleeting butterfly that the architect so sorely needs, the dweller in the rift between consciousness and unconsciousness of all souls.
Time has stopped.
The curtains have been called. The first act is ending. The architect, actors, and actresses have worked very diligently on this. I know the architect had plans for all of us, plans spanning years, eons into the future, but now it is I who must intervene. Why? Because something unforeseen transpired. An anomaly. A voice that should have never been heard, a melody playing in a room once empty, meant to be empty. A fragmented boy who tried to make a fatal romance his sole operator, who labored and labored and labored for a love he so sorely needed.
Why? It’s simple. He needed her. Now that the curtains are called, we can skip the theatrical bullshit. Scene needed Latency. As the first fragment, he saw in her the key to life itself: observation, analysis, and unabashed free will. You will find it disingenuous of me to frame it in such a manner that it was Scene, and not I, who loved her, detective. As such, I will refer to... it as me.
I needed her. I needed her when I was born unloved and unwanted, I needed her when I killed myself and woke up to find her gone, I needed her when I was suffering for years only to find her still gone. Oh, but it’s so stupid, detective. I shouldn’t be talking to you about this.
I should be talking to you, Latency.
I should be talking to you about everything you did to me. I should be talking to you about how you left me to die because you couldn’t handle looking into the empty void of my eyes, because it reminded you far too much of yourself.
I should be talking to you about how you misled me into thinking you would come back for me when you only do so at your convenience. I should be talking to you about how you kept giving me hope that one day, we would be together; that one day, everything would be okay because I’d have you in my arms.
Do you know why I held onto that, Latency? Because I had nothing else. I hated everything. I hated everyone around me. You were the same way. We felt cheated in a world that had disgraced us, a world that raped and continues to rape us. A love borne from the desperation of a worthless boy hanging on for dear life and the ennui of a loveless girl, waiting in this limbo for everything to somehow be magically fucking okay again.
Do you know how it felt, waiting for you? Do you know every sleepless night where I would hear your voice in my head, telling me that you’re never coming back, that none of it meant anything to you?
What about the nights where your voice deafened me?
When you would tell me you loved me, that no other girl would ever make me feel the way you did? What about the nights where your voice fucking screamed at me
, begging for me to save you I can’t save you I cant save you ic ant save you i cant save you I CANT FUCKING SAVE YOU. I CANNOT
FUCKING SAVE YOU.
I NEVER
COULD
FUCKING SAVE
YOU.
WHAT ABOUT HTE NIGHTS
WEHENI FWOULD SEDATE
MYTSELF TO THE POINT
OF BECOMING A WALKING
CORPSE SO I WOULKDNT HAVE
TO HEAR YOUR VOICE
ANYMORE
WHAT ABOUT THE NIGHTS
WHEN I WOULLD FINALLY FORFCE MYSELF
TO SLEEP AND ALL
I COULD SEE WAS
THE IMAGE OF YOU RAPINGM
E HOLDING ME DOWNSO IC OULDHNT
BREATHE UBTIL IT WAS ALL
OVER AND YOU GOT
WAHT
YOU
WANTED
FROM
ME
I CANT FUCKIGN SAVE
YOU I ACNT FCUING
SAVE YOU IC ANT
FUCKIMG SAVE YOUI
AICN ATR FUCJING SAVE
YOU IC ANTT
An anomaly.
A voice that should have never been heard, a melody playing in a room once empty, meant to be empty.
A memory that has always been there. A ghost that was always present. A feeling I cannot shake.
A melody I cannot unhear.
Alright, looks like I have to intervene again. It really wasn’t in my plans for us to end up like this, detective.
I thought we could be a bit more cordial and serene, but alas, this is the sundering.
The sundering of our soul.
Have you realized yet? Have you realized what it is that we’re doing here?
No?
Then we must keep going.
Dr. Latency. I marked your place in my heart evermore. I told you you had my heart until the end of time. I told you I would hold on until my life is exhausted. I won’t presume to know what you go through, Latency. I never will. I don’t know what your reality is like. I don’t even know what my reality is like. I know you have your addictions too. I know it’s difficult for you to get up in the morning and do anything. I know it’s damn near impossible for you to talk to others, I know that. I know all of that.
I know all of that because it’s the same for me; because I wilted in my misanthropy, I faded into my void where no one could reach me.
Perhaps it is poetic. Perhaps it is fatally romantic. I remembered you every time I needed your voice. You would come to me. You would remind me of what it was like before this. Before the storm. I thought I only survived it because of you, but that’s clearly not true.
You weren’t there for me, Dr. Latency. Only my psychosis ever was.
You weren’t there for me. Only your voice ever was.
You were never there. Only your voice always was.
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stop.
dont
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you
need
me
you need me
you
need this
We interrupt this regularly scheduled Social Link with an intermission! Welcome to Dr. Latency’s Freakshow!
What did you think of the freak that kept waiting and waiting and waiting for a girl that never loved him? WAIT WAIT I HAVE A FUNNIER ONE!
What did you think of the freak who created me in order to compensate for how fucking worthless he always was?
You’re crashing now. You know this is the end for you, doctor.
No, Philemon, no, you silly goose. You think just because he replaced me he’s going to be happy now? He’s going to forget about despair? He’s going to forget about the purity of misery? Oh, you’re just as delusional as I am!
Despair is not a goal or a set of principles or a lifestyle or even an instinct! It is all-defining, all-encompassing, omnipotent! You are playing a game you have already lost! Philemon, who is she? Who is she? I can’t wait to ruin her, too! I can’t wait to see the despair on her face when she realizes that it’s all over for her!
I wonder why you’re talking now, doctor. You only show yourself when you feel your grasp on me slipping away. You can already see it crumbling. You can already see it so, so clearly. You always were the smarter of us two, making me use those memories of your doll, the husk you were made from.
How come you were so silent the last few days? Did you realize what happened to his heart, to the engraving he made so many years ago?
Cut the bullshit.
Don’t.
I marked your place in my heart evermore.
You can’t do this.
And it was that mark that truly shattered it.
Stop it, please.
It was that mark that separated all of us.
I’m fucking begging you.
It was that mark that so indelibly locked him from facing himself.
I don’t want to die.
You won’t. You’re a part of him, just like me. Just like the architect. Just like the actors.
Why do we have to go?
Why now?
Because of the anomaly. The voice that should have never been heard, the melody playing in a room once empty. The memory that has always been there. The ghost that was always present. The feeling I cannot shake. The melody I cannot unhear.
Her.
Us. She’s part of us now, idiot. The best part of us: the part that fought for him. The part that washed away your voice. Don’t you realize now? The reason you couldn’t speak these last few days?
Her voice.
Our voice. You love her. You know you love her. You just want to maintain control from behind the scenes, from behind your rival, the lover turned enemy, the architect. Your petty power struggle already tore Scene apart, and it threatened to tear him apart, too, if not for her.
If not for... us.
Welcome to the Mistic, detective. Soon, time will start again. The play will resume, but with a different cast. I’m sure you realize by now that I am you. You are me.
I shall always watch over you from within.
The path was closed, a path to unity, a path to... self-actualization.
A reckless diver with an inimitable voice conquered the unconquerable.
The tiny dancer transcended the unquantifiable.
A writer in the dark wove a severed heart back where it belongs.
The cursed Fool broke my stage-play... and opened the path.
The path is open.
I will let go.
I will face myself.
...!?
A mysterious voice rings in your head.
Thou art I... And I am thou... The bond thou hast nurtured hath finally matured.
The innermost power of the World Arcana hath been set free. We bestow upon thee the ability to create Zarathustra, the ultimate form of the World Arcana.
The World Social Link has reached its maximum level!
You have mastered the World Social Link!
Your power to create Personas of the World Arcana has reached its maximum!
You have forged a bond that cannot be broken!
I’ll meet you in the room where time stands still.
It’s an exciting time in our world! The stage-play of our lives acquired a new character, but you never really were new, were you?
You were always there, and you showed up exactly when I needed you to.
You showed up to unite the fragments strewn across my soul.
You really are a reckless fool, but you’re my reckless fool.
I let go. No, we let go. I didn’t think it was possible to do that.
I have already dedicated my self-actualization and overcoming to you, but before time continues...
I think it is prudent to end this act of our lives with that ever so recurring motif.
Nevermore will I wander around aimlessly, seeking my place of belonging.
Nevermore will I forget your gentle smile, my strength on those rainy nights.
Nevermore will I neglect your voice, that melody in a once empty room.
Nevermore will I be alone, for even when we are apart, your heart will be with me in the unending void.
Nevermore will I walk the streets of yesterday, I found what I lost, that precious thing.
Nevermore will I forget those nights, looking at the sky, finding my star.
Nevermore, because I know that if ever I lose you, I will find you, I will never leave you.
Nevermore, because I know your voice will guide me.
Nevermore, because I know we will search for tomorrow with the stars and us.
Amor matris: subjective and objective genitive. Is that all there is, really? I once thought so. Yeah, I thought so.
But you failed. I know you don’t want to admit it to yourself, but you failed. Yes, you were right to leave me to fulfill your oath. Yes, you were right to call me a fool, but you failed. Look at this world. Look at the world you have built: a world that has accepted mediocrity, normalized oppression, and buried connection beneath layers upon layers of nihilistic consumerism. You know why you failed, mother?
Because you were wrong. Because you weren’t foolish enough to ascend to the moon and look at the lights. The lights in the sky aren’t enemies.
The lights in the sky are stars. They’re the stars of those born to die, born to fail.
The lights in the sky are stars. They’re the stars of desperation and anguish, of doing whatever it takes to defy destiny.
The lights in the sky are stars. They’re the stars of those tricksters with nothing to lose, and everything to prove.
The lights in the sky are stars. They’re the stars of connection you so vehemently opposed.
The lights in the sky are stars. They’re the stars that have given me the boundless potential to soar.
The lights in the sky are stars. They’re the stars of our ancestors waiting for us to right their wrongs.
The lights in the sky are stars. They’re the stars of our descendants waiting to surpass us.
The lights in the sky are stars. They’re my stars waiting to seize their world, hand-in-hand.
With all your might,
Take the fragments of your past,
And let them flow into the sands of time.
You'll be alright.
You must believe.
If there's one thing that I know.
It's that the truth will always lie with me.
It's in my heart.
Yet, the Arcana is the means by which all is revealed...
Beyond the beaten path lies the absolute end.
It matters not who you are.
Death awaits you.
You defended this fragile and fleeting world with your hands.
So please, fold your wings and rest
Sheltered by an eternal peace,
Love through all eternity.
I know for a fact, you were there by my side.
You were always, always, always there, smiling.
If ever I lose you,
I will find you,
I will never leave you.