I want to scream.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

I really don't want to be here.

I have no other options.

This is what I've done.

I'm stressed.

I'm stressed.

I'M STRESSED.

And I don't know how to handle it.

My silence have been because I've just been focused on existing and doing the work.

The company has thrown a lot of work at me and it was all manageable at first.

But I'm cracking, man.

I've been skipping my routine and it's slowly biting me in the ass.

The pain is slowly returning, but I've been managing it.

High G is my biggest nemesis.

Despite the entity lurking around and that eldritch egg still missing.

This post was me procrastinating my morning routine. Argh. Time to go.

It fine. Nothing a little visit to Fyxel can't solve.

My timeline? Do I even have one? How does one define when time is? Where it is or what it is?

I don't even know how this messaging console to the past works.

What year is it? I seem to have lost track of time.

My brain has gone strange.

I spent the day thinking I was two years ahead of the actual year.

It doesn't help that I'm actively sending messages into the past too.

I threw out some drugs thinking they expired. Damn.

What is time?

Did I go out and about at the Promenade? Yes.
Did I meet a friend? Yes.
Did we have fun? Yes.

Do I know how to talk about it? No.

Some interactions were instant regret.

But my pain is back. It was intense and nothing worked. I couldn't sleep.

Was Hue helpful? No.

She's out hunting. Presumably

Honestly? The Company doctors could fix it in a second.

But I didn't trust the company right now.

Fyxel gave me some pain killers at a higher price.

I negotiated that cheap talking sock puppet down. We were supposed to be friends.

But was this ragdoll of a being, really a friend?

I don't know.

A black-and-white line art illustration of a handheld scanning device being held from below, projecting a holographic or floating X-ray image above it. The X-ray shows the bones of toes, with a red rectangle highlighting one bone, which has a hairline fracture. The device's screen displays a graph and fictional/stylised script text. The hands holding the device have small claw-like nails of Fyxel.

"Have you been ignoring this purple monstrosity the whole time??"

My toe was swollen and violet. It had a hairline fracture.

According to Fyxel.

"It hurts less than it looks." I told him.

He sighed dramatically, like a disapproving theater puppet.

"Look, I'm always in pain. This isn't new."

Sketch of Fyxel, a short stout alien creature with a wrinkled bulldog-like face, scraggly hair in his rabbit like ears, and a grumpy expression. He is surrounded by stacked boxes and clutter, with a small bottle hanging off his fingers and a tiny creature sitting on top of one of the boxes on the right.

"Heh. What fucked up thing is messing with you now?" was the first thing Fyxel said.

I glared at him. "Moppet."

I had taken the Omnitram down to the city core. I don't like it. Too many sentient beings.

Too much loud noise I could feel in my teeth, too many piercing lights. It's overstimulating.

It's dark. There's a cup of tea made up of very suspicious leaves and branches. To the top right, is a cat head lapping up some of the suspicious tea.

Apparently, the tea was made with a native plant that grows only in irradiated areas. They're pretty much specific to the Entity's territory.

How it learned human etiquette or what we drink, I don't know.

Hue had given me the name and exact plant variety. But, sorry Hue,
I've already forgotten it.

Yea. All rested and back to pushing buttons.

Strangely, the Entity's effects didn't linger in my head for as long as I thought it would.

Hue seems unaffected too. Which is a relief since she drank the irradiated tea.

It's a very sketchy and dark place. It looks industrial. It has 2 big machines on the left and pipes on the right. There's a tiny silhouette of human in there for scale.

It is in a dark corridor with light shining from the left. Through a door. With a car locking her butt in the light. The rest of the corridor is dark. There's a dark creature on the other end of the corridor and there's a sparkle of a white thing. Squiggly lines emenate from the darkness.

I've been back in the pod for a while.

Got some rest and, pushed more buttons and made some sketches.

To make up for what you would say, "The wall of texts", Here are some rough drawings of the research facility from my foggy memory.

They're just impressions mostly.

Hue was the brave one. She lapped up some of the tea and analysed it.

Yup. It was tea. Made from plants around the area. Irradiated plants.

Good thing I didn't drink it.

It took me a while before I carefully walked down the hallway to where it was. And right on the floor, was a cup of tea.

Hue looked at me.

I knew then that the tea was for me. It was trying to be polite.

But I wasn't! There was no way I'd pick up the tea. Nor drink it.

Was it even really tea?

I knew what it wanted. It was in my mind.

Aloud, I told it, "The company is taking a while. They say they'll get a lawyer. I don't know whether you should believe them though."

Exasperation. Grateful. Anger. The tea.

Then it was no longer there.

Quickly after, distress burrowed down my spine.

That was when I noticed it. At the end of the dark hallway. The Entity. I couldn't see it very well. I could however, make out a bright thing in its limbs.

It wanted me to move closer, but I stood still. Refusing to listen.

Hue sat between us.

There was a meow.

Left. Again.

My nerves slowly crept through my body as I got further into the corridor.

Soon, I saw Hue. Undisturbed and grooming her metal paw.

But I wasn't Hue. I could feel the weight of my nerves slowly settle in my chest as sadness, impatience and anger wafted over me.

The dust and oil just stopped hanging around the walls. The white walls had the texture and smell of a brand new space.

But it couldn't be brand new. No one has been here since the madness evacuation years ago.

I was starting to feel unnerved and really just wanted to leave.

I called out to Hue.

I was pretty sure Hue turned left. So I did the same and walked further into the building.

There was grime and plants attempting to take over the walls everywhere, that is, until it suddenly didn't.

I found myself in a white and clean corridor. There wasn't a door to separate it or anything.

The massive machinery here looked like it was for study, but the alarming amount of biological stains and gutted wiring inbetween all the bits of nature made it seem wrong somehow.

But after reading their fading function labels, they seem to simply be massive versions of Hue.

Oh Yea. Where's Hue?

Rust covered most of the consoles, but did that stop me from pressing all the sticky defunct buttons?

Of course not.

Consider this an occupational hazard.

All the metal scraps were dumped in a room labeled Mimicry 2.

It was the closest regular room I could find. I wasn't going to lug the scraps any longer than I had to.

This place was lined with large machines that all seemed both dusty and oily at the same time.

Didn't know that was possible.

I was expecting some amount of mental assault here. Some amount of dread at least.

The CANARY said radiation was high. But nope. I felt nothing. I was fine?

I have no idea why.

I'm pretty sure it's not the duct tape.

#microfiction #microprose

The research building was vacated after the employees started slowly going insane.

Some went at each other, others just slowly tried going back into the womb.

They were too close to the Entity's Territory.

To the abandoned Company research building nearby.

I've got my suit on to be safe. That place is way too close to Entity territory.

I've duct taped the tear in my suit. It should be fine. Should be

#microfiction #microprose

Remember the time Hue made all those alarm clocks?

Well yeah, now I'm the one cleaning up the mess. I've got random hardware all piled up and ready to go.

But where, you say?

Look, I've been cleaning up. I know that putting plates in what is basically a magic box is not hard, but come on, my reasons for neglect are valid.

That's what I keep telling myself at least.

#microprose #microfiction

Are things easy these days?

Maybe.

It depends on what you're used to. It's hard to gauge normalcy when your daily life has been one anomaly after another.

The pod is littered with boxes, random mechanical parts Hue drags in, filthy plates that need to be in the recycle, and other mess.

Nobody wants to see the company doctor. They only assess liability. Most people would rather limp than get help.

But compared to Entity madness?

It's nothing.

Ouch.

🔱

I stepped on my own toe. It's purple now. Urgh.

This damned high-G of a planet.

I showed people (Yes. I have friends) a picture of it.

"See a doctor," they said.

Never.