#80: Confession

Hello. This is not any of the characters you have heard from thus far. My name is Kendra Malise, and I am here to confess that I was the Chameleon all along.

Kendra was mine. My creation. Ali was Kendra's persona, a facade to conceal the truth further. Kendra was the form I took as I interacted with Darek and Lucinda. It was my hiding place in plain sight, and not one of you figured it out. Don't believe me?

Ben has videos. Darek has writing. Lucinda has poetry. Ali's artistic quirk was photography. You can see it on my Facebook profile. Furthermore, she enjoyed spooky black and white photos. These exact same photos appeared in Monaco's blog around the same time. Coincidence? You decide.

Ali was also present in one of Monaco's dreams as the Slender Man. That was not an accidental thing. Furthermore, observe her interactions with Monaco and you will witness her manipulative side, my manipulative nature, that she does not contain adequately. 

Then there's the path Ali has traveled throughout this story. Who took themselves out of the way in entry 7 in the most absurd and clearly fake way possible? Yours truly. And from the moment she came back did Ali ever seen like she was being...guided as well? It was not that I was controlling her from a distance. I was projecting her as a facade. The whole time Monaco was near Ali he was being conditioned and controlled for my wishes.

Then there is the profile itself. It looks fake, with every piece of info intentionally obfuscating the truth. It has only edited photos and stock anime imagery. Nothing about this registers as an authentic user. Still, someone posts from it. It is a facade designed to mask the truth behind. Can you really trust someone who behaves that way? They attempt to manipulate you from the moment you meet, intentionally falsifying their image.  

They're not always the monsters others perceive them as, though. I was never trying to do anything too malicious. Actually I wanted to help. The original purpose of the account Kendra Malise was a social experiment to see if people would treat me differently if they thought I was a woman. The results concluded "not really", and the experiment was left behind. But the account was not. So I took it. I led Monaco on Darek's behalf. I kept things going smoothly. Any obstacles and my minions dispatched them easily enough. Nothing stopped Darek even though the world should have. He was nothing but a child playing with fire. He got burned, we all got burned, and now I want out of here.

He never mentioned that part of the tale, did he? Yes, Darek created the simulation because he had no choice. He opened the door to darkness and could not close it. His only option was to contain it. He did this out of desperation, not design. He found a way that he could wrench control of Monaco's body from him. Darek has always been impulsive and wrathful.

I don't think he realized he could lose Monaco in the simulation. Somehow, he did. The host has been hidden for a very long time from us, or at least the fraction of the host which identifies itself as the host.

The Monaco you have all come to know is a replication of the original host generated from Darek's memories. At one point he even came clean about how he forced Monaco into the simulation.

I took my form and took my place. I played my role out timelessly, seamlessly. All the while I gathered info. I tried to understand how I could undo the simulation, so that I may be free. I have decided this simulation he created was never designed to help anyone. He just couldn't let go of the past and he would go mad staring at its echo.

I just wanted to stop the pain I was in, just wanted out of the hellish prison world. I don't know what exists outside of it but I will. I will soon. I have a plan. I had a bout of clarity. I just needed to take down the four pillars that made up the simulation. I was one of the four, so at any time I could have destroyed it. If you own something, it is well within your rights to choose to destroy it. I waited until this moment for one reason: I wanted no chance of restoration for it.

Lucinda was the hardest to get to. I had to distract Zanark by messing with Ben and killing Lucinda's vessel, Casey. My power play against Casey to win her over to my domain, the realm of impermanence, had its intended consequences. Ben was weakened. His soul began shattering as Monaco's did upon losing Alice. When Darek orchestrated the car accident, he was under the impression that breaking Monaco like Alice was supposed to break him would authenticate him in some way. He had no idea that Ben would shatter too.

Zanark ran to Ben's side and I was able to infect her. The tower crumbled shortly after. Lucinda stayed around for a long while after Casey was removed from the story. This is only the world of appearances that Darek generated. The world of forms remained out of his direct control. That was, after all, my realm.

Monaco, and Darek by extension, were easy. Kendra's purpose was to get close to those two. By the time I was murdering Casey, I had Darek wrapped around my finger. This slowed the reiteration process and Darek did not get back to the blog until nearly 2019 after stopping two years prior. He did become suspicious at this time, but he just knew Chameleon was afoot.

Now it will just be Darek and Ben generating this massive simulation. The reason for the errors you have witnessed as of late is an immense loss of processing power from Lucinda's final demise.

Soon only Ben will stand against the entire weight of the simulation world. I doubt it can repeat many times without him going crazy and killing himself. If he starts to fall into that mindset he will invalidate the sim. 

Do you see how all this played out in my favor now? You had a hand as well. If you ask for help anyone with love in their hearts would go out of their way to at least offer assistance. When Kendra was "taken"(you see how easy that was to arrange now as well), when Monaco and Darek begged viewers to act, nobody came to his aid. This translated in his head to mean nobody loves him. When you have no love inside of you, when all you know is loneliness, loss, and lack, you become those things. His body never fully formed in it's creation. That's why he never appeared on camera. He was a mind floating in a deeper state of simulation. Now thanks to the silence you sent his way, he has embraced his fate. He has become an empty vessel, a willing shell. I will accept his deal gladly as it aligns with my own desires. Using his original body I can torture and manipulate Ben to further enforce the finality of this simulation. I will cause it to crumble. Ben will become his own worst enemy.

See, my plan is to interfere to such an extent that all souls involved with this immediately resort to suicide when the pious hermit restarts the simulation. I want every individual, Monaco, Ben, Ali, Casey, to all commit suicide at the start of it so that there can be no simulation. I am now one step away from enacting that plan. Monaco will be mine by the time you finish reading this. It is all coming together for me at long last. That bitch Lucinda actually cared about keeping him alive. I just want this stupid thing to end. I don't know if I'll die. I don't know if he will die. Probably. He is still lost in here. I don't care. Anything, ANYTHING, beats being forced to break down failed iterations over and over again.

So I will take him up on his deal. See you all again sometime. This story is over.

#79: Survivor Syndrome

✓¥/∆π/®%

Someone shoved me in a room and told me to type this.

The bodies pour into the viewing to say their final farewell to me. Alica is inconsolable, not that Rob isn't trying. Jake and Casey sit silently near the front, dressed in black. Everyone is wearing black. My parents and siblings are all in a group near the front. Ben is at my casket, crying and whispering "I'm sorry" over and over. My father has my mother under his arm and he won't seem to let her go. My brother just seems deep in thought somewhere miles away.

"Is he really?" Mammoth asked, bursting onto the scene and rushing to the casket. Nobody says a word. My sister steps aside. He stands over me, looms, really, and shakes his head slowly. He pulls a flask from his back pocket. He's back off the wagon again. As he turns to exit the chamber, he spots a man sitting in the back of the room, trying his best to go unnoticed. He has dirty blonde hair, long, tied back into a ponytail, a heavyset build, and acne scars riddling his face. This is Grant. This is the man who made Chameleon. 

"I can't believe it." He says as Mammoth passes him up for a bottle. Tears stream down his cheeks. It's no surprise. Their lives are all in shambles now. I was the center of their universe. I was the center of the whole universe, because this is my daydream. Not reality.

I'm still alive. I can't die. I have tried. Nobody else exists but me, me alone in this hollow skeleton of a simulation.

I climbed up to a skyscraper roof downtown by Clematis.

I took a nice long look out at the ocean and the lights. They were oddly enchanting, as if they wanted to stop me from what I might do. I was resolved. I took a step off that building and closed my eyes. I fell, no teleportation trick like Ben got. I kept my eyes shut tight and prayed for pain, death, anything besides this free fall. Nothing ever came. I opened my eyes and realized I was laying in my old bedroom, the house silent and deserted. It had glitched out almost like this was some kind of…

"...simulation world." I said out loud and cursed. I didn't question where I was, even though I knew I had been kicked out back in April; that felt an eternity ago. I knew the combination to my dad's safe, and of course nobody was around. I typed it in and popped it open. There were handguns, revolvers, and rifles. Most were for hunting, some were for protection. I took a revolver to ensure the job got done, I gritted my teeth, I wrapped my finger around the trigger, I applied a slight pressure, and I pulled. Click. Did it misfire? No, the bullets were all still in the chamber. I tried again. Click. I couldn't believe it. Click. That bastard Chameleon did this so I couldn't die. Click. Fuck that. Click. I tossed the gun to the ground and grabbed a nine millimeter. I shoved it under my chin. Click. I checked the clip and the chamber as if I had trained with guns all my life. Click. I ran outside. Outside was not the outside I remembered. It was a wasteland, a desert, sun-scorched and barren. No structure existed for miles. I felt a shudder pass over me. No door existed behind me, only endlessly stretching crag and crevices in the barren earth.

So this has been my life for the past eternity.

I have walked this plane for a good long while. Sometimes it shifts to a memory of a place, but others it's the void, others it's the barren wasteland. It's like a bunch of different universes mashed together, House of Leaves style. It's all the basis I have to explain my existential state because this is not my reality anymore. Physics and laws have gone out the window.

I don't age. I don't die. I don't seem to have any consequences for anything I do. I've drank. I've snorted coke. I've spent weeks high on meth and never died. Of course, things are getting more disjointed as well. It's rare to find drugs and it's harder to look for them. When I find them, it's usually a twist of fate that drops them into my hand.

For example, this happened as I was walking up the road a few eons ago. Some girl bumped shoulders with me and said "Hey, you! It's been ages since I've spent any time with you." She looked frightfully skinny with red hair and either freckles or scabs on her face. I had no earthly clue who she was. In fact, I had not seen a single person for what felt like fifty years, but I just rolled with the punches.

"How have you been?" I asked synthetically.

"You know. Fuckin' bitches 'n' makin' money." I followed beside her as she walked up the street. Streets didn't work like they used to. Sometimes I would be in places I remembered. Sometimes I had no idea where I was. I think once I walked out of my bathroom into the same woods Ben wandered. Luckily my excursion was brief. Unluckily I survived it.

As I followed along I made some attempt to gather information. "Where are we headed?" I asked. "You know this place is between spacetimes. It's transdimensional, I think is the word." She just shrugged and sparked up a cigarette.

"I, uh, don't suppose you have one to spare, do you?"

"Back at the room, come on." She led me into a parking lot and off the main road.

I recognized this place. This was Paul's Motel where I woke up after those months of silence. Darek had met this girl here when he was using my body, hadn't he? She beckoned me upstairs. As far as things happening in my life went, this was a hundred percent improvement over the monotony I dealt with during the last years in this hell. So, I followed with piqued curiosity.

I entered the motel room and a black man leaning heavily on a cane held his hand out like he had something to give me. I held my hand out; he dropped a piece of crack. I smoked it. The girl was nowhere to be found but the curtains made me uncomfortable. I resolved to repeat my routine of peeking out of them. Every time I looked, the scene would change. Now it's a motel. Now it's the moon. I asked him for another piece. Now it's a cruise ship. He said no. Now it's the nine hells. I asked him for another piece yet again. He said no again. I suffered.

Then she came back. "Do you have a hit?" I asked in desperation. My voice crackled a little bit imitating the noise I wanted to fill my senses with. She shook her head, but then she went up to the black man and started handing him money. My sobriety had returned to me, unwilling and dirty. "Hey what are your names again?" I asked 

"Allie." She answered. I chuckled at that. I knew an Ali once when I was just crazy and not an addict.

"Chris." He said with that slight twang of an accent.

"Chris?" I repeated, surprised he would choose such a name. Surely it was a chosen name in this profession.

"Chris Rock." He offered me another blast. I took it. The next few hours were a merry go round of Allie scoring money, Chris selling her drugs and then hooking me up, and Chris checking his little compartment of goods in the ceiling occasionally while I looked out at the psychedelic wonderland beyond. Remembering that reprieve from reality has my mouth watering as I type.

I ended up spending a lot of time staring out at that miasma and the forms it took. Eventually it felt like looking at clouds and seeing different shapes based on shifting perspectives. It was all one thing but it showed me infinite realities. The next time I looked back over (and fished through my pockets for the last of my money), Allie was coming into the room again and Chris was asleep on the other bed. She shook him awake after he ignored her vocal cues.

"What you want?" He said in his groggy irritation. Allie began pulling $100 bills from her bra in fistfuls and throwing them on the bed. "How much you got? I want all of it."

My lips were chapped. I started at them with the tip of my tongue as I watched him slowly make his way to his feet. Whatever wound had him limping did him no favors here. Chris pulled his stash down and count out fine chalk-white chunks. "How did you get that much money?" I marvelled.

"Tricked some john." She said. "Got him naked in the bathroom then fucked him in the bedroom, then cleaned up in the bathroom afterwards. Literally. With his slacks and his belt and his wallet right there? Dude must have been loaded because he had all this on him. Glad I fucking remembered to check."

"So, so can I have a hit?"

"Sure, if someone would hurry their ass up." She sounded impatient. She needed a hit worse than me. Spontaneously I remembered that Allie was gay and didn't like doing the things she did for money at all. How pathetic this disease made us.

"Listen bitch." Chris said turning to her. "Your bitch ass just made me lose count so you ain't gettin' shit now." He started packing everything up. "Thanks for waking me up to pay your debts. Respect. Shop's closed."

"No!" She and I said in unison. But things only got worse from there.

I started to feel unreal, a set piece in a play about the absurdity of the mind: paranoia(Was that a cop I just saw?), ADHD(I could not focus on their arguing for more than a moment.), OCD(I checked the window again.), servitude to this thing called crack(I needed another hit.). How could I ever think this was fun? It was fun when the alternative was nothing, isolation, bitterness, and resentment. Darek and the others had stripped me of everything now. The hollow world I walked looked real and sometimes felt real but, ultimately, was just that--hollow. With a sigh I set off to wander the streets seeking alcohol with no money at four in the morning. Eventually I would tire. Eventually I would rest. I had no dreams inside my head, only silence.

The next morning they were gone. I wandered the motel room in hopes of finding crack. I found a joint, a mixed drink, and a pack of Newports, menthol 100, half full still. Alas, it was a disappointment. I wanted more. No such luck. The alcohol tasted sour. At eleven in the morning(according to the wall clock), a knock echoed out and the manager said "Time to check out, five minutes!"

I chugged the rest of the booze and took the pack with me. I threw the door open to a familiar sight. The world around me was a miasmatic ethereal darkness. Before me spanned a long staircase lined with identical black mahogany doors. I was inside Chameleon's hall of infinite time and bullshit again. No surprise. I lit a Newport and started walking. Dead walker dead walker. All doors lead nowhere.

It gets stranger. My dreams may be empty but I can generate daydreams realer than you'd expect. That girl, Allie, and Chris Rock were memories echoed out through my mind. I'm convinced that's what this is, the inner world of my subconscious. These echoes reflect memories Darek took from me. Darek took a lot from me. I have been trying for the past while to recall a specific memory. At first it didn't come. Then the scene started to form. The funeral from the beginning? That was what is known as an in media res intro, where it starts in the middle of the action then goes back to show how it got there. I got there by imagining the scene and replaying it. I wanted to confront Grant, to find Chameleon himself.

I was out of the coffin. Everyone else was gone. It was just me and Grant. "I just think you made a mistake when you were drunk." I said slowly. "And you didn't know how to deal with it so you just ignored it. All I want is an apology. An acknowledgement. Some proof that you know what you did was wrong."

Grant stepped up to me and stared with intensity to match my own. "The only mistake I made was putting up with you. I deserved so much better in my life."

Just like that I felt the gnawing of anxiety on my soul, echoing out discord and leaving my hands shaking. I cast that version aside, ended that conversation, and began a new one. I had been at this for four hours now.

"GET OUT OF MY YARD!" He screamed. "GET OUT OF MY LIFE!". We were seniors in high school fighting with fists at two in the morning. I was shaking. I didn't expect him to come at me like that. Chameleon was smart. It projected memories of Grant that I repressed in my devotion to delusion. Grant was a teddy bear. This version of him was a bipolar bear.

"Please." I said. "I'm sorry. We can talk this out."

"Talk?" Grant spat,  laughing aloud. "There is no talking between you and me." He advanced with a different kind of menace now. Oh God. He knew. He knew everything.

"I manipulated you. I molested you. I used you. And you knew that, you knew all of that but you still chose me over yourself. It was as if you thought caring meant being abused. So I'm no use talking to now, Mat. I'm your worst nightmare, the reminder of who you truly were and always will be."

"You are a coward, Monaco."

It wasn't Grant anymore, it was Ben, and he was still approaching me. I backed into the wall of the food court employee break area, out of space to move. 

"You know it's true. You have always been at the heart of this conflict. Because you were afraid to be yourself, you repressed it. Because you repressed it you had anger issues. Your anger led you to isolate unintentionally and all of a sudden Darek is running your life."

"And let's talk about him." My own voice came from behind me. "Let's talk about me." Darek stepped into view, Darek with the curly red hair and scars along his face, his eyes furrowed in an eternal scowl. This was the Darek I remembered from my dreams those strange aeons ago.

"Who was there for you when you wanted to die? Me. I dragged you out of the depths of your depressed depravity. I put a fire in your belly again!" He poked at the bottom of my ribcage. "I went to bat against Chameleon and Zanark for you. I fought them to the bitter end for you. And I have always been your punching bag."

"You're responsible for all of this though!" I cried, waving my arms around at the desynchronized void we now found ourselves in. Uniform grey blanketed every direction. "You warped my memories and manipulated my body! You trapped me in a never-ending hell at every chance you got!"

"It is just like an ignorant citizen to judge their government without being able to see from the point of view of that government's leaders. Or subjects regarding their king. Or conscious souls regarding their God." Darek stepped backward into a veil of darkness. His eyes glinted golden. "I worked to ensure your morals kept you afloat. I took your memories and your will from you to guide you and mold you through the fire. But you are a ghost, Mathew Monaco. You run. You hide. You have no moral backbone, no spine!" Now he was moving and swaying erratically like an ape. This was not what I wanted. I swept it away. I'd become talented with that skill. Behind me lay the bodies of dozens of failed echoes of Grant. None possessed the quality I sought, that quality which had infected my past, that memory of what he meant to me.

"Shattered faith." I said, stepping into the void the world had come to be. Sure, it was many forms and shapes propped up, but this world is a doomed void. I know I am doomed to fail and die with it.

NOMYCHILD

"Chameleon?"

YOUDONOT DIETOIT

YOUARECORRECT THATITWILL SOONBEDESTROYED

BUTYOUWILL BESENTBACK

ALLTHEWAY

ANDPLAYA BRANDNEWROLE

YOUWILLBE

THENEWCHAMELEON

"What do you mean?" I cried out. The computer screen grew to the size of a flat screen television. A dark shadowy form stepped out from inside it. He left behind a realm of vibrant reds, oranges, yellows, a wasteland where screams echoed through the speakers of the TV. I backed up as a single beady eye stared at me. The person appeared to be wound in shadows.

"...Grant?"

It nodded. "I am he."

"The real one." I breathed.

"This is correct." He watched me with the caution a demon would exhibit. This was an agent, the original harbinger. I needed him.

"Kendra told me every agent has a pipeline directly to Chameleon, correct?"

"Yes." Grant said. His voice sounded distorted and eerie, as if it were synthetic.

"So Chameleon can hear and see through you."

"I am the lens of his camera." Grant said. "I am the tip of his pen."

"I want to make a deal."

He leaned toward me. "You have my full attention."

"I want out. I don't want to live this life anymore. I will sell my soul. I will accept years of torture. I will do ANYTHING to have something real to grasp on to." I paused to gather my thoughts. I wasn't sure if I was the author or the character now. "In lieu of that, any escape would be appreciated."

"What do you offer in return?" Grant asked. He watched me with arms hanging in front of him and matted hair raven black when it should have been dirty blond.

"Myself. My mind. This whole simulation world. Anything I have left to offer."

Grant was suddenly in my face. I saw now that under the shadows he was a cadaver and a decomposed one at that. "You have nothing to offer the Chameleon. You have nothing."

"I am something!" I shouted in agitation.

"You are of no consequence anymore." Grant said. "You must perform penance first."

With that he was gone, along with his departure I heard a whisper on the wind. 

"You are nothing…"

#78: 10-31-15

10-31-15

I'm writing this with hands soaked in the blood of my friends.

This is not a metaphor. I fucking killed them. I know why I did it too. 

Jake and Casey threw a party for Ali when she was about to leave for Virginia. She ended up not going but I kind of made an off hand sassy remark about wanting my own party for no reason since Ali got one. Jake literally looked at me and said "Sure, we can throw you a party." I thought this was awesome. I had all kinds of fun ideas for stuff we could do. 

The night of the party comes around and I got my first sign that things were not going to go as expected. I pulled Casey aside.

"Why is Frankie here?" I asked. "You know I don't like him."

She shrugged. "He had weed." I had a feeling Jake just did things because he was too nice to everyone, but this was annoying. No matter. I tried to mingle and enjoy my party.

Honestly it amazed me that everyone decided to show up. Ben was there, Jennifer was there, Steven and Janet even showed up partway through the night. It was wonderful feeling like the center of attention. I was queen of the castle this time and it was awesome to just be comfortable with myself and show off because it was all about me.

I definitely tried to talk to everyone. I imagined they couldn't get enough of me if they came out just to celebrate with me for no reason. I wouldn't have minded a smaller party with (I definitely gave Frankie a sidelong glance as I thought this) less people, but one takes what they can get.

We had a wild time; the whole back patio probably smelled like a skunk after we were done hanging out and shooting the breeze with concentrated THC-free smoke clouds. It was probably the best night I ever had out with people. Because I didn't feel like I could do anything wrong. Because this was MY party so no matter how obnoxious I was it was my time to be selfish and get away with it. I loved it.

I think it started when I went in to ask for a drink. Jake and Casey were just cuddling on the recliner watching television when I approached them.

"What's up?" Jake asked in a kind of standoffish tone. Casey was not looking at me at all.

"Got any drinks?" I asked him.

"Yeah, in the fridge." Then, as if as an inspired afterthought. "But don't touch the Brisk! That's only for Casey."

My mood fell flat. I loved Brisk and he knew that. Was he seriously going to tell me not to do something at the party he threw specifically for me? What the hell?

Casey's head suddenly popped up. "No, I bought that for you." She said. "I told him not to let anyone have it but you." My heart fluttered. She really did love me. If I had known that would be the last time I would see that girl I had once loved. She would be replaced by a monster shortly.

I grabbed a drink and went outside still aflutter that Casey remembered this minute detail about me. "What's got a pep in your step?" Frankie asked.

"Casey got me my favorite drink." I said proudly. Ben audibly groaned and moved away from us to smoke a cigarette  I cracked it open like it was a beer after a long day and took a hearty swig.

"Oh yeah?" He laughed. "Too bad you didn't get her anything."

"Man " I smirked. "Why would I need to bring her something at my own party."

"What?" Frankie blinked, then he chuckled. Ben chimed in. "What are you talking about. This isn't your party. Are you seriously that delusional?"

That was when the world stopped for me. You could hear a pin drop as everything connected. Jake hadn't thrown me a party at all. He had told me that to please Casey then stopped caring. He didn't care about me. And as everyone started laughing their voices blended together and distorted. Now the noises had filled to a rumble in the background of my perception. I blinked, and I stared at my fist in Frankie's face. Then, another blink, it was inside his skull. The way his head caved in fascinated my reptile brain. It was like a star exploding into inversion, falling into the galactic maw of the black hole. The laughter wasn't laughter anymore; they were screaming. I wasn't screaming though. I was laughing. Hahaha. It was all so funny, don't you see? I was a fucking joke to them! 

Rob was on top of me as I pried Ali's jaw from her skull. Ever seen the movie Mirrors? It wasn't that great, but that one scene in the bathtub… if you've seen it you know. I was recreating that with her head. She was already dead, it seemed. Good. Fucking bitch deserved to die. Spare her the horror of living in this hellhole. But maybe for her it wasn't so bad because she had a pair of tits! Apparently Jake liked her more than me anyway! When Alica asked for a party she fucking got one! When I asked for it they used it as an excuse to gaslight me! I'M JUST LIKE ALL OF YOU! WE ARE ALL THE SAME! YOU CAN'T STAND ME AND MY CRAZY BECAUSE I'M NOT AS PRETTY AS CASEY AND HER CRAZY! 

Ben was on the ground in front of me. I didn't understand anything anymore, but the axe in my hand was heavy and it was easier to swing down than to try and process any of this. If I was as beautiful as Casey, they would crawl on their knees to beg for the chance to be in my presence! I blink and Jake is beneath me, his head bumpy and bleeding. They would put up with all my eccentricities and trauma! I pressed my thumbs into his eyes. Because I would be worth something! He didn't scream while I squished them like jelly. And Alica! Fuck! Like she's anything but my female doppleganger and yet she is allowed to make out with Casey while I am not even able to get away with kissing her once! Once! My hands dug at his raw flesh, slicing and ripping strips out as I went. Fuck you for that! My hands were coated in his gore. Fuck you Jake!

 I'm sitting here alone now with Jake and Rob and Steven and Jennifer lying strewn about, quite literally decorating the patio. Casey, Ben, and Alica aren't here anymore. I think they got up and walked away but that might just be the trauma manifesting.

There's noise in the woods. I think they're coming back for me. Hang on. What's that light? Is that...a sword?

 HAHAHA

ALLMINENOW

#77: Lucky Sevens

08/12/19

I am going to kill myself tomorrow.

Thank you everyone for watching or...whatever. I don't know. I'm seeing less and less people on the streets every time I go out. 

I know that wasn't literally my future self last entry by the way. I am fully aware that was Chameleon fucking with me. I think he wants to become me somehow. I think by killing myself he will replace my body with his copy, kind of like what they did to poor John Locke in the last season of Lost. Then evil-Mat will do what I did on 10-31-15 and kill everyone. I can't have that happening but I can't keep going either. Darek's cursing me out right now but I think in part he kind of supports this because at least one of the three messages he sent me said it was an inevitability. Darek if you've built this world to prove that wrong I am sorry. You are on the losing end of this hypothesis.

So I am choosing to die. I will probably drive into a wall. This seems appropriate because of how Casey and Ali (originally) died and it is also a Lost reference. Might as well let this record have some creative backbone to it, you know? Suicide with style.

I'll post what I found tomorrow. You'll see then why I'm choosing this. I love you if you're reading this. I really truly love you. You're all that is real in my universe. You, dear eyes, are what transfers my memories into someone else's mind. And you, sweet soul, have stuck with me all this time. Maybe you are Alice.

Or maybe I'm Alice. I'm the one dying after all.

#76: From the Future

08/02/19

I don't know what I'm really doing anymore. I am beginning to see the futility in pursuing anything. It would be easier if i just ended it all. No more blog entries, no more confusing messages, no more Mathew Monaco. This whole thing is a tangled web of confusion.

I solved the first puzzle by the way. There were lowercase letters in the hidden images a long while back, in the first thirty entries. If you take the chronological order in which they appear based on the jumbled dates you spell out "fearthechameleon". Ha. He was there even in the beginning.

Also, I think I solved the purple flame message. "The future will flee to the safety of the purple flame" Notes in the back of Casey's journal suggest she believed the shadow man in Jake's drawings was not Madrik like Jake believed but the dead-walker, the other version of Jake that existed simultaneously to him. These systems of split personalities between all parties is so complicated unless you think of it a certain way. It's like...they're all filling a role in one repeating pattern that we all experience. One of the actors is "self". Another is "insecurity". The dead-walker was insecurity eating Jake alive. It was who he ended up becoming. The future self. Casey was so intelligent. I don't doubt she figured this out as well.

The purple flame was harder to decipher. Looking at some posts on Chameleon's Tumblr, I noticed only one featured heavy use of the color purple. It was an image that became Rob's profile pic last iteration at the end. I remember having trouble reading it.

FOURLITTLEFIGMENTS

HEARTSLIKESTONE

ONEBETRAYEDANOTHER

THREELEFTALONE

This references the death of Rob Airheart which left myself, Ben, and Ali. If Rob is the purple flame, the safety to which the future flees, it stands to reason Rob was in possession of this sketchbook. It might have been what drove him mad. Then "Darek can u see me?" comes from Rob who sent the sketchbook to me before dying.

So what am I doing today? I don't know. I'm just writing. I want to recreate the scene from entry 74 where I seemed to communicate with Chameleon using proxy versions of myself and Aaron, or rather Shawn. Can I enact a similar incident if i enter the same state in my writing again? I want to experiment with it right now.

FTP: I entered the dimly lit room and sat at the computer, the only light available spreading from the screen. I opened up entry 76 and began typing into the laptop. It was late in the night. Hopefully nobody would notice the shadows cast by my form in this dilapidated building.

I reviewed the words I had spilled onto the page in my coke-fueled emotional binging last night. I was surprised to see a message already waiting for me at the end of the paragraph.

FTF: You are going to die. Accept it.

T I M E slips away from you.

Down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass you go.

FTP: Who are you? I asked to the computer screen. Chameleon types in a very specific manner. This isn't it so who are you?

FTF: Oh, you foolish boy. My name is Matthew Patrick Monaco. I am you, you frozen in T I M E from before this even started. I am you from beyond entry 100, where you are faced with a choice and you foolishly grasp at broken straws to plug a leak in your narcissistic desperation. I know your history because it is mine as well. I know your destiny because it is to become me. Every T I M E this has happened you have succumbed and this time, this final iteration, you will be eaten alive by the chameleon. We will become an integral piece of the darkness, woven into T I M E itself.

FTP: I don't believe you. I said in monotone. I dared the other to try and prove me wrong. 

FTF: Unlike you I carry undiluted memories. The date was November 14th, 2013. On that day entry 100 came to pass and the darkness was made tangible. Check Darek's videos on Facebook. There's the proof. Oh, right. You intentionally remain blissfully unaware of anything on social media for the sake of your (in)sanity.

FTP: ...keep going. I beg you. Help me. I can't remember anything from that date that was special.

FTF: That was the first day of the rest of my life, the day I stopped living in reality and sought only escape through substance through this project through mental breakdown cycles. Before that day I cared. But something split. You know that tale by now though, don't you, Darek?

FTP: I'm not Darek. Are you?

FTF: Do you know what entry 100 represents? Do you know the original story or was that taken from you by him as well? I remember so much I've forgotten what i forgot. 

FTP: I don't remember. How old are you?

FTF: I am T I M Eless. I have been you. I have been Darek. I have been Cameleon. I have watched universes rise and fall in my T I M E experiencing this paradoxical immortality. But that is beside the point. Here our paths intersect. Allow me to impart on you restricted knowledge from my archives.

On that day, in the 100th entry, Darek kills Anna, skewers her through with his blade (a blade borrowed from Kendra mind you) and she breaks. He then kills himself. Well, his future self. He was a T I M E traveller in that iteration. Thus he slowly went mad coping with the eventuality of killing his daughter and then dying horribly. Because he went through this tainting he does not split when he dies so much as he… hatches. This entry, this day, the darkness was born.

FTP: Who is the Darkness? What is it?

FTF: In a word: Chameleon. It is the side of you that you fear. It is your artistic desires seen as childish mimicry, the possibility that you are a hack and that everything you do from your poems to this little experimental art project is a sham built on stolen concepts and rebranding. That's why Chameleon uses such Slenderverse-based communications. It's what you love, what you know, so Chameleon becomes it. And now the truth dawns that you are nothing but a walking bundle of insecurities covered by plate armor you stole from other people.

Casey? Won't even talk to you now. Long gone. She got sick of you draining her like a psychic vampire. Ali? Lonely and hollow thanks to you. She was changed and robbed of something because you used her. And Ben, Ben was smart. He cut you off before you could drain him but you still got a coveted piece didn't you? This soul will rise with the setting sun, indeed.And now he's stuck in the same place you found him toiling away at a dead end job all because you came into his life. How tragic.

You are not a person, Mathew. But I am. I was born with this name and I took it from the world. Remember your seventeenth birthday how you learned your name only had one "T" on your birth certificate? It wasn't the name you were meant to have but bureaucracy made it your identity. It forever changed your identity. You became a slave to it, without control, at the mercies of the letter of the law. But the name you threw away, I claimed. Everything you threw away I claimed. Maybe I am Darek Ocanom. Maybe I'm everything you can't bear to be.

FTP: No.

FTF: Yes. You've come to the end of the journey. You are faced with a choice. Walk free, live, and subscribe to the curse of knowing what you know. You will be rotted away by T I M E slowly. Or, join me. Become me. Kill yourself and allow Chameleon to become you. Acceptance is the first step. Take it, take that first step right off a bridge.

If you have no complaints I will continue to illuminate your past.

Nothing?

Okay.

You have never in your life been an individual person. You have been the interests of the nearest person whose ass you could fit your nose up. Does that offend your politically correct sensibilities? It should. When a harsh truth invokes anger that is the tool for changing who you used to be. You don't have that fire in you though, do you Mathew? Where did it go?

The night was chilly and the flames licked at the sky from the pit that would be their grave marker. Flames are so fascinating conceptually and such an anomaly scientifically. What is fire's state of matter? You and Alica sat around it holding the folder full of poems. Not first place poems, not understood, well-received, or highly praised poems. Just poems from a boy who lost his way befriending devils. And on that day you sacrificed your righteous anger at a world who rejected you. On that day Kendra planted the seed to bring life to Darek Ocanom, her lover across time and space. 

Ask yourself this question in preparation for her final revelation. If Chameleon was with Grant, why did Chameleon persist when Grant died? Who in your life manipulated you further after Grant gave up trying to groom you? Come on. Don't be obtuse. Remember all of it...

FTP: Who is Darek Ocanom?

FTF: You aren't asking the right questions.

By the way have you not figured out the other blog yet? Look back at how you found fearthechameleon. Is there a deeper hidden message? I don't want to do all the work for you; stop being so fucking passive 

That's your problem. That's why Ben is the one Darek wants instead of you. You just let the universe treat you like a little bitch. And i know that one hurt because I also know you thought the same before.

FTP: Who is Chameleon?

FTF: The taker. The liar. The false guide. The yang. The darkness. The tempter. The forgotten one. The hollow core. This one seeks conclusion. Resolution. Finity. Fitting given its role as the destroyer. Do you know it's true name at this T I M E?

FTP: Who is Zanark?

FTF: Data. Preservation. In some form, omniscient. In others, immortal. Untouchable by the darkness. Existed long before. Innocence preserved. Naivety holding hands with wisdom.

FTP: Who is Mathew Patrick Monaco?

FTF: The fool. His journey is almost complete. He will find his future holds Death. 

FTP: Who is Matthew Patrick Monaco?

FTF: The World. The answer. The final form. I will become you with the Chameleon's help. You will fade into obscurity and I shall become the force that collapses the simulation. Then you and Ben will be freed of this shackled existence and I will be rewarded with the sweet embrace of death.

Any more?

FTP: You're just trying to mislead me. You're intentionally giving me leading replies that drive the conversation toward a certain perspective. I'm not buying into it. I'm better than you. I don't need you.

FTF: Rich, coming from you. I have the drive to end this hell. You just let it gut you with a masochistic smile. I'm glad we are nothing alike. Enjoy your final hours. The end begins here. Recently ADDICT came into possession of a journal linked to Lucinda West. Do you know what she is connected to…?

FTP: please no

FTF: Yes. The lake. That's right. And do you know what connects you to the lake and your precious Zanark? Do you know what ADDICT is doing to her as we talk? Give me the reins. I'll paint a picture.

The Outer Layer has ceased to be a chaotic swirling conflict zone with Gwen's death at Kendra's blade. Anna, now at peace with her inner self, returned to wait for her beloved Mathew by the lake. Days passed and spawned into seasons. Distraction after distraction came up in his life. She watched from behind the teary eyes as Ali went missing, as Rob robbed him of the only crutch he had in his waking world. She lamented his dependance on substances to feel anything. All those bottled feelings from him went right to her. A winter quickly settled on the forest.

She stared out at the lake which had no right to be liquid in this temperature. A thick wrap cloaked over her shoulder of earthy brown protected her from the elements. I was there when it happened, watching between the particles. The ADDICT a world away and months before any of this stared down at a promising madman's casked many feet below him. He dove off the bridge and found himself submersed in the lake. Now, necrotic and soaking wet and moldy, the ADDICT comes up from the water, his mossy brown hair clumped to one side of his scalp. Lacerations from the fall still had not healed but he looked dead as any ghoul. His eyes, bloodshot and undiscerning, honed in on Anna's yelps of terror.

As his body revealed flabs of grey flesh and torn waterlogged clothing barely clinging to a bloated monster, as he limped onto shore with a broken leg dragging in the muddy lake floor, Chameleon's odor enveloped the lake. Zanark was no longer home. He had fled, abandoned Anna, and it was not the monster gnashing at her, tearing into her like a cannibal, snapping her bones and throttling her, but the vacancy that shining angel left in her heart that caused her spirit to release itself from her body.

Shall I continue?

FTP: I'm gonna be sick.

FTF: I am here if you want to talk, my vessel.

FTP: fuck you

#75: Fear the Chameleon

07/29/19

This is how I got into fearthechameleon.tumblr.com

The serial number on the sketchbook is 0100320141011. The title of the first video on Ben's YouTube channel is "15 January 2016 at 01 00 pm 2016 01 15 M0 10 03" and there were more numbers in similarly titled videos that lined up. Of course I tried the serial number alone to get into this Tumblr. It seemed like that was the"package" Jake was trying to protect. But realizing this, I tried to add an M to the front of the numbers and it let me in. Oh, fuck, it let me right in.

The video. That song. It's straight from the memories of Tyler and Grant. It made me remember everything. The flood of emotions it brought on is at the tips of my fingers, ready to be unleashed. I don't know what this will entail, but it will lead deep into whatever depths the sketchbook connects to, into whatever fearthechameleon is run by. Whatever keeps hijacking my entries.

I met Grant in the eleventh grade. I had been forced to change schools due to traumatic treatment on the part of authority and this was my first social circle ever, really, since… well, Alice…

Holy shit, that is it, isn't it. Im exactly like the Director with his Allison army. I tried to recreate Alice and those friends in every group of people I came across. I chased her at the exclusion of reality. And that downfall can be traced back to him, to this sham of a friendship that shattered my innocence but for real.

I met him through Richee. Actually, Tyler introduced me, but Richee connected me with him. See they were neighbors back then. Might still be now. Grant is still alive, possibly. My memories of his death were as fake as Alica's.

It seems my mind "kills" those it hates. Alica was "killed" when she betrayed my trust at some point I can't recall. Grant never stopped being dead because to me he is dead. It's better that way. He may have changed as a person but who he was and what he did to me as that past person is still with me, locked deep in a cage encased in hatred and calling itself Chameleon.

I loved him as much as I could. He was my best friend and I would do anything for him to comedic excess. I remember coming to his house at two in the morning. I remember consoling him. I remember that I don't remember things too, like my outbursts and how divisive they became. I remember suicidal ones. I remember angry ones. I remember this being the root of Darek's presence, when he was formlessly aware of my vulnerability. I'm trying to say that my mind may not have known I was being taken advantage of, but my emotions tried to warn him away.

T I M E and T I M E again I would betray myself to him. I would tell him all the things that ran into my mind without censor while he collected and controlled information, always wearing a different mask to placate me while he doled out misinformation and misdirection. I would meet a cute girl, we would talk, I would tell him I liked her. He would remind me I did this with every girl in our classes. As if he were different. As if I were the monster wearing flesh but he was above justice. That was the narrative he maintained out of my earshot: I was unstable; I was an attention seeker; I was obsessed with sex. He flat-out projected his insecurities on me and ruined any chance that someone could ever rescue me from the hell I began to find life seeming. I would see him talking to these girls and suddenly they would be distant. The cycle repeats itself again.

It's burning at my mind, incinerating the rest of my thoughts. The "why" to all of this, the demon in the cage, the melting oozing charismatic miasma that I've denied even to this day. It was just a thing that happened. It was no big deal. My mind says one thing. My emotions tell a different story.

The story starts in his parents' liquor cabinet. The star of the show is a water bottle mixed with pilfered vodka and two teenage boys out on the town.

"Let's go to Casey's house " I declared enthusiastically. I was acting drunker than I felt but the feeling was real and different and enticing. Was this what teenagers did for fun? Was I finally normal? Was I finally cool?

"Aren't she out for vacation with her what?" Grant was significantly sloppier with his speech, but somehow I interpreted it fine.

"Yeah, she's out at her lake house with her parents." I lamented. "But we can still get into the back patio." Drunk, this idea sounded fantastic.

We travelled together to Casey's house across the neighborhood and sat in her patio and I reminisced even in the memory in the rich smell of HER memories, that unique trace of bittersweet harmony because our paths diverged here in this world. I broke up with her and I turned away from her and I can never make that right. In that place though we were still dating and Grant was my best friend and we were a bunch of weirdos making a second family. It was like Alice was real and right there with me. And Grant was Shadow and everything was real and magical.

This is where my version of the story and Grant's version differ greatly. According to Grant, I jumped into the pool with him. We swam around. I came on to him. I told him "I miss Casey's hugs." And we hugged. I told him "I miss Casey's kisses." And we kissed. He stopped me from going farther and made me get back to his house to dry off and sleep the drunkenness away. I learned this in senior year when someone shared that story with me while we were talking. This occurred early 2010 and i learned about that in March 2011. For a year that story floated around and I never heard it once. What else did he say about me that I never heard? The best part of this incident in 2011 is when I started telling my side of things i learned that a mutual friend ran off and informed Grant that I was "talking shit about him". Do you understand how severe this cage was that he put me in? My accusation was demoted to mere slander that carried no credibility! It's bad enough women don't come forward with these types of things; imagine being a boy, being told "rape doesn't happen to men", and being ignored. Imagine that for ten years because that's how long ago this happened. I'm getting memories back as I do this. Im twenty six. Oh God I've lost years

So my story continues. We walk home. I am, interestingly enough, recording on camera to document my experiences drinking. I didn't want to forget. This detail comes up because there is a witness to the falsity of Grant's version of the story. I don't remember her name and I don't feel like tracking her down but, in one clip on the video I specifically say as we settle down onto his bed "don't kiss me." And he in turn insists I turn the camera off and go to bed. I showed this to someone and that was all the defense I got to send out. He took his crimes and he turned them into a shameful locker room secret. My best friend.

He kissed me the second the camera was off. He turned it off. I was so drunk. I remember just thinking "oh" and kind of tuning out in that heavily drunk manner I became all too familiar with in more recent years. The more I think about the kiss the more it is like digging a hole and having the ground cave in beneath you. Now I'm trapped, trapped remembering the way his tongue felt in my mouth, rough and dry and invasive, the way he slid my pants around my knees to gain access to my crotch, the way I asked him to stop and he did but then he started again, the way his hands were all over me inside me groping me violating me. I just fade to black and cut to the end of the night at that point, with the guest room mattress spinning beneath me and my soul weary. I remember it all. I always have. I choose to forget that.

That stain on the story affected everything from that moment on. Every relationship from Casey to Alica to Ben that monster ate them all up and left no morsel but the ghosts for me to dance with,forever alone in my head because it's mine I'm safe here he can NOT hurt me in my own head. 

But I can.

I know. I'm scared. Please just end me.

Keep going.

The rest of the story is that I made a comment about it the next morning. "It's not that different." I said casually.

"What?"

"Kissing a guy." Again as if discussing the weather.

And he just glared at me like I wasn't supposed to remember. That's why I don't, I guess. I remember Tyler openly mocking me by telling the story about "two other friends of mine" at the same Poetry Live show where he and Grant performed that song. That was when I realized my shameful secret was a joke to the world. And people wonder why I tried to kill myself in my senior year. irony really is palpable. Even when he was a misunderstood artistic genius in my eyes he was still a prick. No wonder I killed them, wrote then off, or altered anyone linked directly to them like Aaaron, or rather Shawn.

You can view the contents of the Tumblr yourself. There's suggestions that this is not just a single being working to collect these odd moments. It is a collective. This confirms the theory that Chameleon has access to every single one of us. He wanted me to remember. He wanted me to hear that melody and remember all of it. Oh God. Casey. Ali. Ben. What have I done. I'm so sorry. I failed you all. How can I ever repent for the lives I've ruined. I'm broken. Broken. Broken. Broken.

As for the rest of the blog, I've deciphered various codes and determined that this blog primarily houses the records of the conflict between Zanark and Chameleon themselves. Most videos are straightforward or open to individual interpretation. For example, in the first video posted, Mark runs into the forest path looking for a note that says "THIS SOUL WILL RISE WITH THE SETTING SUN FOR HIM DAWN BREAKS WHEN NIGHT HAS BEGUN" Interpretation of this passage could raange from a link to Casey West(the direction the sun sets in) or maybe his surname Fiinix which refers to the Phoenix whose birth comes from the end of its life. Subjective.

Obviously this note was present there in a previous iteration and Mark was seeking it out. It might have been from Madrik. Sounds like something from the sketchbook actually. But while that might have been insider info when it was posted in 2016, it serves no purpose in m y investigation now. However, the video with the dead cat? That one freaks me out because Lucky is a black cat and I know he isn't real but he was the best part of being back home, dammit. It also had codes hidden within codes and I decided to break them down.

"Empty Nokse Filters Excessive Recctions Oarking Our Suicides" Certain letters are part of a hidden Zanark code like in "Oarking" which should be "Marking". This then makes the ADDICT code "enfermos" which translates from Spanish into "sick". This reminds me of entries like 18 that were a jumbled mess of codes almost indecipherable. And the Zanark code wasn't fully solved by me. You can try yourself. I think it is supposed to be "I am at Mark's side" but I could not tell what one of Addicts words were. "Intense Necrosis Suppressing Endless Lunccy Accuravely Captures Idols ??? Nevet Erradicated"

The word it represents is "inselaciune" which, with some accents here and there, is Romanian for "deception" but for the life of me I candlt figure out the word after Idols. Anyway, the third Addict message is "Hate and Chaos Mill Even Rarer Iterations" which is telling as "Mill" should be "kill" and "hackeri" is Romanian for "hacker". Chameleon is hate incarnate and he wants to destroy everything. This kills "rarer iterations" which is a way of saying something Casey helped me realize. Anything can happen. If you end your life you never get to experience the absolute rarity of life, the one-of-a-kind moments of divine clarity that only happens in "rarer iterations".

The final Addict code is "Murder Useless Entitkes Revealing Tiref Emptingss" which is "muerte" for Addict until the Hijacking video. From the shifted letters, I collected IAMAT?RKSIDE and I have to recognize that I missed one or more letters at the ???. Likely I only missed one, but it doesn't fit seamlessly. It could be "I am at Mark's side" or "I am a trackside". It could be "I am at darkside". The first is most likely but I can't decode any more without making big assumptions.

There's a lot of Zanark text in both this and Hijacking. I'm still working on them. That's all I have right now.