o07/29/19?
This has been my life for the past month.
I wake up every morning around six and sneak out from the behind trash compactor to see which day manager is working at Walmart this time. If it is Julian I'm in the clear. He's cool. If it's Agatha however... I mean with a name like that I'd be a miserable cunt all the time too. When she works I have to stay hidden until later in the afternoon. It's shit because there's an electric outlet but it is right under the leaky irrigation. So once I came back from the bathroom(which is the far corner behind the trash compactor, next to the pile of dirty moldy clothes and the two comforters that are now my bed) and find my only phone caked in...something. Smelled a lot like sharp cheddar puked up into bleach.
I needed a new phone after that. My buddy stole me one. I've got a lot of friends now but it's more of a mutual parasitism because the guy that got me clean clothes also screamed at me and stole my beer outside WalMart. I was so embarrassed I stayed away from there for a bit. Or how about all the addicts I've befriended? How about the addict I've become? I'm not exactly moral about my choices now that I have nothing to lose. Crack, coke, pills, cooking wine, stale half-empty beer cans, anything works in a pinch. Sobriety is the enemy. When I am sober I can feel the anger creeping up, Darek's final gift to his favorite punching bag.
I don't know. It's been a whole new experience. I've never had to deal with this type of thing even before I at least had Ali right now i just feel so all alone. That's why I decided to find Aaron and uncover some things about my past. Something is telling me just don't stand still right now. Something screams that there isn't much time left. So I am directing all my focus into this mission of understanding the puzzle pieces that were thrown at me, deciphering what's really going on here, and pressing on.
Links have been placed in my previous entries starting at #64. They all lead to the same site, a password protected page called "fearthechameleon" on Tumblr. I'm not really sure what the password is but I have some ideas I want to try. In addition there's these cryptic writings in here. One mentions the purple flame that was also referenced in Casey's journal. Another simply says "remember 10-31-15" and that's unsettling enough by itself. The only record of 10-31-15 in these logs is in entry #33, the dream log. It came off as if it were edited to hide an event on 10-31-15. I'm still trying to look into these different clues hoping to finally, finally have some kind of breakthrough on all of this. But to be honest I've kind of stopped caring. Whatever happens will happen. Whether this is purgatory or a replica of reality or the fucking simulation-within-a-simulation gambit from Rick and Morty, I don't care. I'm still here. Nothing changes except what they want to change. Chameleon and Zanark and Darek feel more like gods of my world than creations of my mind.
Most of my time I have dedicated to seeking answers about some of the things off imgur Rob sent as well as the whole mess of May that my blog reflects. A lot of what he did and said didn't make sense to me. He brought up people from high school, Grant and Aaron, as well as suggested they played some part in these events. Aaron strolling through the wasteland as a stand-in for me made me curious if talking to them would yield any results. Maybe if I uttered some keyphrase I could glitch the simulation out or something; I don't know. Maybe that was the symbolism of the game after all. I wasn't Aaron. I was the monster.
I had only one resource to find the info out. I didn't communicate much via social media after high school, and Aaron was always on and off it like a ghost passing through, anyway. The people I knew who knew him were Ben, who wouldn't talk to me, Grant, who killed himself, Mammoth, who also killed himself, and...Richee.
I had to get in touch with him but my phone had lost service long ago. I tried finding a way to contact him via Facebook. I still refuse to use the site on principle, but from Facebook I found eMail, phone number, other social media, all of which yielded no results. I had no choice but to try and find him IRL, in person, face to face.
I was literally walking down the street reading through an AskReddit post(since I can load it when near wifi then browse it after I am away it has become prime on-the-go entertainment[Don't get me started on how it feels like looking through a pinhole at a world I am not a part of]) when a car pulled up beside me. I looked over. It was a familiar sleek black and the driver was rolling the window down.
"Hop in."
I can not even be surprised by this predictable plot twist. Here, in a reality where he didn't exist, Jake Ramsay had appeared to offer me a ride.
I didn't say a thing, just crawled in with my backpack at my side and kept my head down but my senses on alert. Damn if it didn't put me at ease when the man offered me a joint.
"You look like you need this."
"Never don't need it." I said quietly as I snatched it from his hands like a dolphin snagging dinner. I took a long puff and was immediately rewarded with the overwhelming urge to cough it all out.
Jake laughed a little at that. He looked different but still recognizable. He had grown a rather impressive beard and wore a beanie on his head. His voice, his laugh, his mannerisms, his eyes, all of it brought back good memories of simpler times. I was grateful to be in this place. I recovered from my toke, connected my seat belt, and Jake began driving forward.
"Oh!" I jumped up in my seat and dug through my bag. "Your sketchbook! I have it for you!" I did not see it inside. I know I had it; I never let this bag out of my sight.
"Don't worry about it." He said. "I wanted you to keep it… to remember me by." He waved a hand around the oh-so-familiar car. "To remember this by." This was Jake's car, the one Casey died in, but right now that didn't matter. This was the car we drove around and hung out in. This was the car we blasted metal in. This was the car I hung out the window of doing 40 near Casey Road where Ben had that nightmare encounterISTHATTHE TRUTHOFIT ORWASTHAT JUSTANOTHERSTORYbut the nightmares hadn't touched this car. This car held good things.
"The difference between Chameleon and Zanark" Jake said, "is that Chameleon remembers what people took from you and how cruel they were. Zanark remembers the good memories before that happened. Like me." He smiled.
"You're really…?"
"Yeah." He said. "I'm really Jake. I'm your friend and Zanark sent me to help you get somewhere. Richee is more of a built-in aspect of things like an NPC. I'm...different."
"I'm sorry." I said quickly.
"Not your fault." He responded with resolution undeniable in his tone. "I am the memory of someone you loved twisted by the Chameleon inside my own mind. You didn't do anything but give me life. I'm thankful for that. That we could share this."
The car slowed to a stop and I was amazed to see that we were in front of the Wellington Mall and it was now midday instead of early evening. I had not even noticed the sudden shift during the conversation. My eyes had naturally gone to my lap and we had made a two hour trip in either negative seven hours or seventeen hours.
"Good luck." Jake said. "I hope you find the answers you need."
"I wish Casey was here." I said. "You two deserve to be together."
He smiled wryly and shook his head. "No. We don't. But she's still alive in Zanark even though she's not here. Just trust that all will end according to the design."
I wanted to ask what design but I felt I already knew somehow. Can't put it into words. As soon as I stepped out of the comforting bubble of the old Mazda 6, my fears and insecurities tackled me into the mall.
If I had just had an active phone, if I remembered Richee's number, I could have saved myself the trip. Shame swept over me as eyes poured into my soul, revealing the festering black illness sitting inside. I didn't belong in a place like this. I wasn't like them. I stood apart. The evidence of this was painful. Suddenly that nice memory with Jake felt warped; I was unworthy. To have wasted the entire deus ex machina on this? Shame.
I was too scared to even go up to the counter at the Subway and ask where Richee was. I watched two teenagers I didn't recognize ringing up a small herd of mall goers. Not sure what else to do, I sat and waited for him and checked my backpack. Lo and behold, there sat the sketchbook, open to the page with Neo's smug grin, the RWBY fan art that had impressed everyone and been dedicated to Casey. I didn't need to question it. Just go with the flow. Life is a simulation and I just rode around in a sketchbook to get here. Fuck physics.I flipped to the dreadful front of the book.
Madrik's chaotic gaze met mine. Something about the image just put off this aura of bleakness. I could see Jake's hand trembling as his last moments came upon him, his soul fleeing into the sketchbook. Caught there it remains. And it had secrets I needed to hear. This thing that should not exist, this other half to Casey's journal, has some malicious power to it. It's not just my paranoia and anxiety spiking randomly. Touching that book connects me to some grand darkness, the mother ship from which the dark cloud was sent. It's eldritch and esoteric and it's my only clue. . I need to hold onto it. It is my only source of life. Everything else will turn and try to take it from m e but I will guard it with my life it's mine mine MINEMINEMINEMINE
Sorry. It happened last entry too. Something else is trying to communicate. I think my mind is breaking and MADRIK's trying to get in somehow. Forgive the eccentricity and let me continue.
I found Richee eventually but he didn't get there until four and he didn't leave until after close. I had to wander the area but I didn't mind. Whether I was in Greenacres or Wellington or Little Rock, Arkansas, it was all the same to me.
"Are you okay, dood?" He asked when he saw me.
I shook my head. "Have you been following my blog at all?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
"Not really. I've been playing FFXIV a lot lately and working on this YouTube channel. I made a bunch of tutorial videos because the ones that existed were outdated and-"
"Okay, I don't really care to be honest. Sorry but a lot has happened and I just wanna ask one question before anything."
"Okay." He said. Didn't even sound bothered by my poor attitude. That's why I looked up to him. "What's up?"
"I'm trying to track down the pieces of my past." I said. "It seems like all of my memories are scattered and hidden and manipulated."
"By Darek?" He asked.
"Yeah, and…" I hesitated. Had I ever mentioned Darek to him before in this lifetime? I was incredibly sure I hadn't. Still, this was not what I wanted to discuss at the moment. "There's these other two. One's called Chameleon. Pretty sure he's the reason my memories have been gone. I'm not sure if he's allied with Darek but he's definitely the main villain of this all."
"Okay." Richee nodded. "Who is the other one?"
"That's, well, Zane."
"Wait, Zanark?" Richee squinted at me. "Are you ripping off Ben's character?"
"No, dood!" Now I was getting flustered. "This isn't my doing. This isn't a game. This is my life!"
He shrugged. "What you perceive defines your reality, so if you say so I can't tell you it's wrong."
"But it's real." I said with emphasis. "Do you understand that?"
He nodded. "Kinda." He pulled out his phone. "What was your question, though? My ride will be here soon."
"Aaron." I said. "Remember him?"
"Oh yeah! Hung out with us after school, right?" He nodded. "Always wore a black trenchcoat. Super long hair. Wasn't he friends with that kid Tyler who was really good at piano?"
That brought back a flood of memory. Me and Grant and Tyler worked on a history project together. We were good friends back then and Tyler was, in fact, a fantastic piano player. Then he hung out with Aaron a lot more and… he changed. Started acting really self-absorbed and solipsistic. It was kind of a shame to see his personality change like that. He was probably wrestling with a lot. I hadn't thought of him in years though.
"Any idea where Tyler or Aaron are now?"
He paused a moment. "I don't know. Me and Tyler weren't really good friends. And Aaron doesn't really stay in touch. I'll hear from him once in a while randomly but the last time I talked to him it was a while ago."
"Oh…" I sighed. That was my only lead.
"Wait!" Richee snapped his fingers. "I was with my friend Lizardo and this girl called him on FaceTime and Aaron was with her!" He started typing on his phone. "That was like the beginning of this year so it might be something. I'll ask."
Sparing the details, Richee got me a number for someone who sent me to a gas station in downtown Lake Worth. There I met with a questionable woman who could connect me to Aaron. Her name was Luna and she was his ex girlfriend. Or, at the very least, she was obsessed with him. This much was apparent within thirty seconds because I didn't even get to introduce myself when she started ranting.
"He hasn't called me in three weeks! It's ridiculous! Like all I did was ask if I could have the piece of shit car in his garage? I know how to fix cars, man! Nobody ever believes me! He acted all cool about it but he hasn't talked to me since and I don't know why! Like do you know how awful this is? I have sent him seventy-three text messages in the last week."
"Has he responded to any of them?" I asked cautiously.
"Not even one. Fuck him. I can make more money without him weighing me downs anyway." She lit a cigarette. I did not press her on any of the comments.
"So you can give me an address to find him then?" I asked.
"Yeah, maybe." She said. "I can tell you where he was three weeks ago. He didn't really have a place, you know? Just kind of hung out around the area or whatever…" she threw her hands in the air dramatically. "I let him stay at my mom's for two weeks and he just used her just like I let him use me. Ah, hell. I'm too sober for this." She smiled awkwardly as if just remembering I was there. "Sorry. It's been a long week."
I gestured to my ratty clothes and dirty skin. "Same."
She gave me a couple of locations around West Palm Beach. After begging for bus money to do some travelling, I wound up near 45th Street, which is not the place to be if you have any valuables on you. Luckily I didn't. It was...strange, though. Quiet for a Friday afternoon. Something was off-putting about it. I approached the door and my heart stopped for a moment.
It was exactly the same, not the one from the Outer Layer, no, I would welcome that doorway in this moment. The door before me was painted black, gnarled and intimidating in its stature. It looked before me with a creeping seizing tension that pulled me towards it as I contemplated fleeing immediately.
I stepped up and wrapped my hand around the handle. The feel of cold steel in my hand anchored me. I took a deep breath and knocked.
A frightfully skinny man with large eyeglasses answered the door. Wisps of wavy chestnut hair fell behind the frames. "Y-yeah?" He stammered. His pupils were dilated. "What do you want?"
"I'm trying to find an old friend of mine, Aaron." I said. "Do you know him?"
His eyes darted side to side and he looked over his shoulder. He still had not fully opened the door for me. "Who wants to know?"
"Dude, I told you. I'm an old friend of his. Look, I just want to-"
"How do I know you're not a cop?"
"What?" I held out my arms so the fullness of my odor could waft toward him. "I must be deep undercover then. Really committed to the role when I slept behind a Walmart for weeks!"
"What's going on?" Another voice asked. I recognized it but not clearly enough to speak up.
"Some guy's looking for you. He seems sketchy."
A second head poked out from the background. "Oh shit, Monaco?" Aaron exclaimed. The long raven-black hair tied back in a ponytail gave him away immediately. "Let him in."
I smiled smugly and squeezed past the tweaker at the door. Aaron waved me back into one of the rooms and I followed. The house looked oddly familiar, the layout almost identical to Jake's house. However, this house had no furniture or decoration whatsoever. It was not excessively filthy, just jarringly empty.
The room Aaron led me to had a makeshift bed in the corner, a mattress with a pillow and blanket. One window seemed intent on letting as little light into the room as possible. Clothes were scattered sparingly across the floor. The room felt lived in but also transient, temporary, like this was a cheap motel room, complete with bed bugs.
"Can I offer you a drink?" He held out an unopened Bud Light in his hand and I took it without hesitation. "I won't lie. I never expected you of all people to turn up at my door. What the hell happened to you, man? You were always so bright in high school. I figured I would see Ben here before I saw you."
I didn't smile or relax. I watched him with careful eyes that had no idea who this person was.
"I'm actually here trying to figure that out myself. Something happened to me. Something bad."
"What did you get hooked on?" Aaron asked. I hesitated and he took that as weakness. "See, it's something. You would have answered if it wasn't something. Is it meth?"
"No!" I exclaimed.
"Shoot. Aw. Gosh darn it. I have some good hook ups for that. Speaking of shooting,is it heroin?"
"No, Aaron."
"Coke?"
I hesitated again.
"That's a rough one. It grabs you by the balls without you even noticing." He lit a cigarette and graciously offered me one.
"That's not what I mean! I just did it once; I don't have a problem!" I snapped. He didn't lose his composure when I yelled. He just held out his pack of American Spirits. The pack was black and my mind wandered into a memory.
"I understand what it's like. I'm the same way. There's a pack of wild dogs in your head and once in a while one misbehaves. It's Tyler's fault for trying to grab you when you got up to leave. Here, want one? It's an American Spirit full flavor. The box is black, it's metal as fuck."
I took the cigarette and settled down before I even lit it.
"I'm not here about drugs. I'm here because I can't remember my past. All my memories seem unreliable, like they were fabricated. And this guy, Rob, he referenced the name Aaron. I want to try and remember people from my past. And you're my best lead."
"Are you about to ask me about that dog-fucker, Grant?" Aaron snapped, his demeanor becoming suddenly intimidating and unwelcoming. I took a step back and tightly clutched the beer.
"Why would you assume that?" I snapped. "I was going to ask you about me."
"Yeah. Exactly. You're asking me about that dog-fucker Grant." He announced like it was the punchline to a joke.
"... I don't get it."
"Mat. You followed him around like a lost puppy. Which might be a poor choice of words given his penchant for dog fucking. Have I mentioned he fucks dogs? But no. You were his punching bag back in high school. You and him went everywhere together. Then you had a huge falling out, you called him a whore on the internet, then you backpedaled like a little bitch and you became officially uncool. I mean, I think you're way superior to all those assholes anyway, but you were considered uncool by the faction of people that followed Grant and Tyler."
"Okay." I said. "You're throwing a lot at me here."
"You really remember none of this?" Shawn inquired.
I shook my head. "I don't know. The details are there but they're vague and fuzzy. It's almost like they don't exist until I…"
"Start writing them down?" Shawn asked. I stared at the screen. Was this happening?
"Your memories betray you." He told me. "For example I've been Aaron since the start of this, but Aaron is the name of Grant's old friend. Mammoth lived with him for a year in Alabama and conned him out of money. You switched the names because memory is unreliable."
He stepped closer to me. "And this conversation right now is happening because you are creating a second copy of yourself in this room with me when you remember this scene. It's an echo of the truth. I'm using this echo to directly send you this information."
"Why though?" I typed into the keyboard. "Why now? I've been writing for years and this has NEVER happened like this."
"Because it's almost over. Almost completely over. I have your guardians under my thumb. Ben will break. Then you will die in the flood. And only I will remain. Soon all that you know and love will turn to black and everything will fade from reality. You will see that only you exist, only you and the star shining in the distance. This is your love. If you move closer to her, you will find yourself never gaining. She remains fixed apart forever. How long have you let her light blind you to the darkness your heart lives in? I should know. I suffered a similar fate a while ago
All will perish
NOMATTERHOWBRIGHT
MADRIKMADRIKMADRIKMADRIK
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