Maybe it's time, after all.

It is the thirtieth day of the third quarter of the year 3729, for whatever that means to all who are not where I am.

Like Ruya, I can't access the blog. Thing is, maybe there's a reason for that. Only a couple of people have indicated they've read it and you all seem to be... either messing with a pair of completely insane people or from the place where I am, where video entertainment caught on over radio entertainment and didn't need to wait until the internet took over to flourish or where the language I speak (and often butcher) is called English. Maybe we can't access it because it isn't meant to be here.

A while ago we were listening to her favorite show in the middle of the night and a pair of men came by. The voice on that video on my page belongs to the younger of the two. I guess looking back they hinted that I ought to "look to" them for "help." I don't know what they mean by "millions of lives" or by the associated imagery. Wish I had a name for you, none was given.

This "meet yourself" nonsense, too, like he thinks I'm delusional, maybe. I don't like it. I don't like any of this. I spent so much time depressed and alone that I never thought I'd say this but I want to be back in my shitty little cabin, behind the gates of the "commune."

Here's the thing. I'm starting to get hungry, very literally. I think there's beginning to be some suspicion about me at the hospital because a nurse seemed to realize I haven't been eating, brought me a meal and was promptly taken off of duty as far as Ruya goes.

That's the thing, guys. Before, I lived very strangely, in a closed in community, doing what amounts to freelance work over the internet for peanuts and half living off of carefully portioned out student loan money from the last semester I completed before dropping out and running. Thing is, no matter how weird things got or how frustrated I was, I always managed to at least eek out enough for a damned meal.

I may have to go to them after all.

Tell me, though, when does going with two unnamed, suited government types who didn't identify themselves at all ever end well?

3-26-3729

On 2-74-3729 Kzra asked:
What did she try?

On 3-16-3729 Kzra said:

Fuck.

Take it things aren't going so well.

I either of you can reply, keep us updated.

Be safe.

On 3-6-3729 the last post on this blog was made on this computer. Obviously not by me and definitely not by Ruya. The day before the hospital visit she said she wanted to try something. Given what she said happened the last time she “tried something” with me, I didn't want any part in whatever it was. Psychology, parapsychology, voodoo bullshit, I don't care. I didn't want any part in it. I still did what she wanted.

She said she was going to try to find It in the Irdi Field. (By the way, I realize now that I think I heard of the concept of the field before I met her. I don't recognize the word she used for it, though.) She told me she was going to try to access it through and I quote “a sort of self-hypnotized guided meditation.” She also said she hated to do it because sometimes, just sometimes, she swears she hears and sees things when she tries to do that. She told me to come in and if anything started happening, to start taking photographs.

So I waited and waited and the next day, as she was getting ready to sleep (we do not sleep at night) she told me to give her a few minutes and then come in.

So I did.

I could hear her voice through the door when I came in and it was coming through an old tape recorder. Let's say that if I understand anything about all this it's that I don't understand anything at all about all of this. I can only assume it worked at first, to help put her under.

Then things... went very wrong.

Some sort of fit, a seizure, coughing blood, nosebleeds and it got worse from there. I sent for help and they got her to the hospital.

Technically her brain activity is lower than they would hope for... but she's not braindead. She's just comatose.


I wonder if you can imagine how hard it is to get a job when you don't have an identity... or know anything about just about anything in the world around you, or technically have no home. I mean, in reality I'm living at the hospital or Ruya's but technically there's no home.

No one's come by so if Ruya has any friends or family they don't know she's sick. I don't want to ask the doctors and arouse suspicion and anyway the guy who seems to be in charge of taking care of her doesn't speak... whatever language Ruya and I speak. I'd call it one thing, she would call it another.

Point remains. I can stay at her home for now but I cannot buy food and most of what's left in the house now is canned and even that is running low. One more can of terta seed soup and then it's just down to canned vegetables.

I've typed all of this and said nothing about the video, haven't I?

I know whose voice that is.

Mission: RECOVERY

Subjects: OCCHERMAN, RUYANI; RAILE, LOUIS

I think that it's time that you come to us.

Still Out.

2-73-3729 E.L.

She asked me to come into her room the evening before last. Said she needed help for something. I should have told her not to do it, told her not to try it. I didn't.

She still won't wake up. 

Wrong

Once upon a time I wrote a blog of my own. I lived in a place that does not exist, called Michigan on a continent that does not exist, North America.

I mostly wrote out of boredom. When you are in hiding with the same fifteen people and can't really afford to go to places with other people, then it makes a little sense to get bored.

Eight little cabins, a place that used to be a summer camp, families in about four, singles in the other four. I was one of the singles. I was a broke-ass college student (“college” is not actually a word here. They all use “university”) that dropped out and moved up state and hid away from the monster under his bed. Well, that's not true. Never really was under my bed, was it?

Thing is, before I knew I wasn't alone with seeing It, I had an excuse to write off strange behavior in others. After, I had no excuse. I should have recognized the signs in my little brother, even if they were just in my memories. I should have gone to see him long before I did. I should have done all of these things differently. My brother was into another guy, my douchebag parents threw him out. About the long and short of things.

Except its not.

The same nightmare I was in, he was too.

I think I saw him once, I think we were huddled together on cold stone, a ragged, nasty blanket, open sky overhead. I think he said something.

I don't know.

Everyone I talked about in the commune voice, the ones vanishing... I became one.

Thing is, I don't remember much after the door to my cabin got kicked in.

Stone, dirt, cold, outside.

My brother's face, a stranger's face, the blonde's face, the no face.

The metal music, the light, the dark, the cold, the wet.

Not knowing, not wanting to know, lost and confused.

Ruya stomping back into the den yelling at me, why didn't I hear her? Why didn't I help?

All of that.

Then this. Then now, then who I am.

And of course everything I remember... none of it's real... or none of this is real.

Right?  

In Response to A Question

I realize now that I missed responding to a comment I was notified via e-mail about. Since I cannot actually access the blog itself, still, I only can really respond this way. The comment in question read:

"Where is this taking place? What time are you in? It may be possible that this boy can manipulate the Idri Field, the same as you."

Well, to answer the most concerning point first, no one can manipulate the field. If you're lucky, innately talented or dedicated you may learn to read it, but it is what it is despite you. No one can influence it, except, perhaps through simply existing.

I live in the city of Matee, in Orwell. The date, at least as of writing this is 2-53-3729 E.L.

If Louis is not insane, however, I fear that that means absolutely nothing to you.

Visitors

We've had visitors. Well, we've been having a visitor every night for weeks now. I can almost feel him peeking in our window, but Louis swears he never notices anything. That is alright. Most nights we sleep in the living room together, an interior room. To say that we sleep is a bit misleading, rather we both sit up in front of the radio until whatever it is that keeps us awake loses its grip and sleep regains its own.

There were three of them. The first two were disconcerting, but not in the way that the last one was. They wore dark, pressed suits.

Not in the way the last one did.

The first two came in the early hours of the morning. I thought perhaps I was about to get news that they knew who Louis was and all of this oddness would be explained if not ended. We were still listening to a Kayani soap opera (it's all we can find on at that hour, Louis is starting to understand the language too, perhaps out of sheer necessity) when they knocked. Of course, at three in the morning we were both rather on edge and talked to them through the door until we were satisfied they weren't would-be thieves.

I wish they had been.

It was innocent at first. The men, normal looking and nondescript sat down and accepted tea, they nursed their drinks almost gratefully for a minute and then they asked questions. We informed them that, no, Louis really didn't remember anything else. That was because everything he told me he remembered made absolutely no sense, it all smacked of madness. We had long since agreed not to be forthcoming on this point. What really began to worry us was when they started to ask very leading questions.

“Why have you stopped going into work?”

“Are you finding yourself with any new or unusual hobbies?”

“Have you been the target of any crimes lately?”

Though there were others very disturbing, perhaps the one that I found the least comforting was, “Have you been sleeping well?”

Then again, one look at us would tell them that we lied.

They promised to keep in contact, neglected to tell us their names or precisely who sent them and they left. The conversation felt like it might have taken an hour but when I checked the time, it seems they were in and out in all of five minutes.

A couple of hours later I heard a noise from roughly the direction of my bedroom. Louis did not, he simply stared at the floor as he often does while trying to concentrate on the Kayani language. I don't know why he didn't hear it, why he never notices any of the oddness going on but since I can't offer an explanation I try not to dwell on it.

That, at least, was my stance until I got up and went to my bedroom.

I stopped in the hallway leading up to it, cold bare feet on tile floor and all.

I've never seen a man so tall in my life.

Then again, I've never seen a man without eyes, a nose or a mouth, either.

Louis didn't hear me scream.  

It's been almost a full day since I was left standing in the hall way, feeling like an imbecile, but I still don't believe what I saw was fake or imagined. Mostly because of the reaction Louis gave when I described him. 

Perhaps that's a story for another time. I need to see if I can convince him to eat.