A History of Cryptic Answers

I just slept for what had to be twenty hours. I barely remember being awake before this. I can't even believe I remembered my passwords to two old blogs I wrote back in the day, but when the drive hits you to write, things find a way to focus.

I'm sitting on a bed in a room I've never been in. My legs are *sore*, I ache from stem to stern, and the world is too bright, too loud, and too saturated. I don't even know where I am. Google says Alabama. I've never been here.

How the hell did I get here?  I spend half an hour throwing up what is most definitely not food into a bucket, and after some time, I experimented with this thing called 'walking'. A few shaky steps were managed before I sat back down.

There was a nervousness to me as I sat there. My left arm wasn't working, and part of me really didn't want to look beneath my hoodie to see what had happened.  Which reminds me, I guess some of you don't know how all that turned out, so I suppose I should give some sort of brief explanation.

I cut my arm open with a piece of shit broken sword, and either entirely or partially amputated the outer arm bone from my left forearm before I bled out in front of a massive supernatural tree that I was desperately trying to kill.  Not sure if 'amputated' is the right word, perhaps mutilation.

Good times.

I look back to that blog, that post that I so eloquently named "gguhhjk" as I one handed thumbed on a stolen cell phone during my triumph over evil. My fucking manufactured legacy that I had wanted so badly, that all it took was a little nudge for me to get pushed over the edge.

Damn it. I was such a fool, and I had multiple forevers to think about it and myself...You see, when I was...well, I suppose I was dead, wasn't I? I was dead. God that is such a messed up sentence to write.  I was dead, without respite in my very own hell. It was there on that Path of Black Leaves that I had traveled back in the day.  I had learned the art, or perhaps I was shown it on that night of the Winter Solstice so many years ago when I laid a trap for a monster, and attempted to beat him using metafiction.

Jesus Christ, this is my life. I am looking back at my life, and I simply cannot fathom what the hell happened to me. I can't even believe myself.

I walked that damn Path for forever. I brooded, I remembered, and one thought was omnipresent with me, that I failed, that I fell. I thought about how I had killed...murdered other bloggers because I could TELL they were guilty of something. That they were the RIGHT ONES to kill to kill the Bleeding Tree. I can't even remember all of their names anymore. I had to go back to my last blog to read them. Even then there were people I never knew the names of. And I killed them, in a fit of desperation, a fit of mad aspirations. And it did no good.

I thought about how I was sexualizing Rika, and her scarily competent replacement. I sexualized them because that gave me power over them. If I could control the fiction of the conflict with her, then I could lionize myself, and make her seem like some stalker with a crush.

But that's not what I really am.

At the risk of sharing too much, if anything, I'm Ace. All that talk about anything else is just noise in the wind, that casual bravado that men are expected to throw out there, to establish their alpha male posturing nonsense.

However, times have changed, and so have I. And with that change brings grief. I checked old accounts, old blogs about people I knew. They're gone, save a scant few. These people that I struggled with, that I confessed to, that I *hunted*, they fell to the darkness, to those creatures in the night.

I took my mask off and stared at the end table. Fizzbomb, Thage, Chester and Vieve, Maduin, poor Nessa, the Delmonts (Glad to see Redlight finally got killed, that fucker can rot next to me), but god so many names, Battery Resistance, Shaun (of the first Sages), even Robert fucking Sagel and his own load of horseshit, Ava, Jeff, Jean, Celie, Basroil Squad and Nightcrawler, B, Liam, Amalgamation Sage, Haukrei.....Kay.

Kay, whom I did such wrong to.

Even Zeke Strahm was taken, and some son of a bitch had the AUDACITY to put it on film.

I'm alone.

I just stare. There are no tears left in me. I do some more searches, looking for new people afflicted. I don't see anything outright. Just some comments. Maybe its over.

Maybe its *over*.

Maybe when we died, the stories stopped spreading, and people never understood who it was that followed us, or maybe things became such a nonsensical meme that nobody took it seriously anymore. Maybe being *trivialized* killed the monster.

That was when there was a light knock at the door.

I tensed up. I hadn't any weapons, but the instinct was there. I remember fighting....things, made of shadow and leaves. Thoughts flood my head, as I relive those stressful times, and logic has to be forced in through all of the panic. If someone knows I am here, they wanted me alive at least.

I didn't respond, the door opened regardless.

My mask was back on before she entered. It was a safety net to me to wear that shitty monster mask, and I craved every bit of familiarity and comfort I could get. I must've looked ridiculous.

She was a pale one. Part of me wanted to describe her as you might see in a film noir introduction, you know the type, talking about 'midnight black hair that shimmered like nightfall in the rain', or 'a sleek willowy frame that had just enough curve to make a man interested'. But I'm not wearing a fedora and a rain slicker.

And I'm not that sort of asshole anymore. She DID have long black hair, and matching lipstick, her clothes were decidedly goth. I suppose that's the right term. A black blouse and cut off jacket with a bit of silver, and some sort of silver skull wrapped about her left leg on her leggings.

I met her gaze as she cautiously entered, her tone was a little husky or ragged, like she was sick. "Hey." Awkwardly, I just sat there on the bed while she entered. No weapons were visible on her, and the door shut behind her, so she wasn't bringing in a dozen cultists in robes to fuck shit up (yet). As a master thespian, I fell back on my role-playing background to put forth the presence I needed to portray, that I was not someone to mess with.

By that, I mean I started to say "Hey" back to her, then immediately threw up black stuff again. With whatever that was dripping down my chin, I said in apology, "I missed the bucket." and slumped against the wall.

She seemed okay with my problems and sat at the other end of the room. "I'm Jack." She said simply, favoring one arm over the other as she leaned. That drew my attention, "You're hurt."...Ever the knight in black shit armor, I betrayed concern, like a pretentious white knight piece of shit that I am.

But I'm not that guy anymore, remember?

Jack looked away, waving her hand absently, "Yeah." She let the silence fill the room, and waited for me to ask. That was what I needed, time to process things.

"Why?" I croaked out. I wanted to ask everything, I wanted to scream, to cry, to just get myself killed right then and there, I just...I wanted *peace*.  Why? was all I could say.

She didn't meet my gaze, as she leaned forward a little, her hands together.  "Because of the fears. We're all being manipulated by them. This is where its lead us."

I didn't understand and the look I gave her must've said so. "Fear brought me here? That doesn't make any sense."  "Fears." She corrected, putting more emphasis on it. "You know what I'm talking about, those things from beyond that stalk...from the shadows."  I understood, and started to speak its name, "The Sl.."  She interrupted, "We don't call it that anymore. Please don't.do it either. If you have to refer to that one, Hollow Man works as well as anything."

Later, I would understand why the name changed, and I'll say nothing more on that subject.

"Hollow Man. So there *are* more of them. I had heard of other things, something about an Obelisk, some nameless creatures that were made of water..." I didn't want to say its name, but it had to be said.  "The Bleeding Tree."  A lump filled my throat as I said the words, my mouth was dry.

She barely nodded, sullen and solemn on her own. "We're not sure what the Tree is, but there's other creatures out there, seem to project or create specific types of fear. Not sure if they adopted those motifs..." Her tone dropped, "Or if they created them, but they're out there. We just call them Fears.  There's more than too many."

I repeated the name, "Fears....okay so what does this have to do with me? Why am I here?"  My voice rose too fast, I practically shouted, "TELL ME..." I sucked in a breath as my control started to return, "tell me that you're not expecting me to save everyone."

A wan smile crossed Jack's face, "You're here because we need Sages." My eyerolling must've been visible from beneath the mask, I started shouting, she started shouting, I denied everything, letting her understand how much of an idiot I was. Eventually, she just let me rant. "Did you see what I did to people LAST TIME?! I am not to be trusted. I'm not your stinking /Hero/."

She took in a breath, then said softly, "Do you remember Jeff?"  Yeah I did. "Jeff...Keeper guy, never really knew what he was a part of.  Talked too damn much about having a hot wife proxy. Kept wanting to find a proxy cure. Turned out to be someone else."

Jack nodded as I overindulged with what I remembered, "He sort of put me in his stead." I frowned, "The real Jeff or the fake Jeff?" She looked a bit put upon as she continued. "Whichever. The point is I sorta got you out of things. You might remember seeing me there a few weeks ago?"  I didn't. Not a few weeks ago, weeks ago I was just...walking?

I offered her a vague shrug, so she continued, "You've been gone eight years realtime, probably somewhere a lot longer on the Path." I knew time could be strange out there, how could it only be eight years? "I actually know you, well other 'you's." Jack sat up trying to beat me to the punch, "There's this whole different timeline thing I am a part of. I know 'other you's, about 20 of them."

"I think if I could reach the door, I'd leave." I replied with a edge to my voice. She added, "You knew about just as many fucked up things as I have put down here, give me a fucking break."

I couldn't argue with that, a finger raised as I commented, "Reserving right to go back to this later." She nodded and continued, "Other timeline yous have been rather helpful, and well...you're the one left, so..."  Her words trailed off. I gave her a look of skepticism and anguish, I'm sure. "And I've died 21 times then, great, my death counter can buy alcohol."

In response, she tossed something up onto the bed. I recognized it instantly, and picked it up. It was a tiny jade dragon. The rope had frayed off of it, but I remembered this token. I gave it to Nessa a lifetime ago as a way to measure her...well, for lack of a better term, 'corruption'. My test about jade being an absorber for sin or evil worked at least. It was a bitter pill the more I looked at it. There was even a time when I stopped seeing color, and carried that and a jade pig with me. I like to think that those items helped clue me in on what was happening to me.

That and that deer that broke its own neck near me.

Good times.

My voice went hoarse as I thought about that past of mine, all those events, me standing there with my piece of shit sword, ready to rally against the darkness. To die nobly, and to have a name treasured forever.  Even afterwards, when I was doing what was needed to save everyone...my legacy, my treasured legacy. All I ever wanted...a reason to be, and a reason to be remembered.




This is exactly what I would've given someone as a memento, a token of wanting them to do better than I. Perhaps it was mine, perhaps it was some other version of mine, but I felt it in my hand. It had come back to me. I didn't know what to say, just this little token of eight long years past
"okay....I'm starting to believe you."

I had no tears to cry. I was cried out forever.

So why were my cheeks wet?

I wasn't that person anymore, remember?