Friday 12 June 2009

living under a shadow

Note affixed to the outside of an envelope which itself is stuck to a diary page, the pages prior to this page have been forcefully removed,only the ragged edges remain prior to an entry titled “Facing Orchid”

Herein I collect the shredded remains of my diary, pages lost not to flood, fire or mishap, nor through the malicious intent of another but through the destructive rage of the final stages of my descent, as the meticulous human recording her ordeal became an angry beast seeking nothing but to sate its desires. Some weeks had passed since the last remaining whole entry, and the desperation recorded in that entry had only increased, the continued meticulous recording that had maintained my connection to my former life had became ever more difficult, those few snatched moments, typically after feeding when Nareth would retire

and leave me unwatched, my own beast tempered and easily mastered, became ever rarer until the fateful day when I all but destroyed this record, the day that marked my departure from humanity mere days before my release, my redemption.

So strange the words that flow from your mind to the paper, “release”,“redemption”, they have sense of finality, the closure of a chapter, they suggest escape; yet can I even now say that it is over? How could I? How could anyone after so much deceit and distrust, layer upon layer of lies? Is it really over or have I simply peeled back one layer of lies to reveal a fresh layer beneath? I sit alone at night weeping, wondering when it will return, when this illusion of safety, of humanity, will once again dissolve into the bestial terror to visit disaster upon unsuspecting friends.

I have decided to seek help, final proof that there are no further layers, that I am released or perhaps the final acknowledgement that I am still tainted, a lurking threat, waiting for her to spring the trap. If no proof can be found then my course is clear and I am quite at peace with what I must do. It is no more and no less than I had previously known, was it not my naive commitment to self sacrifice, my life to save many, that brought me to this point? Babbage was saved, in that we were sucessful and history will record that Nareth Nishi (professor) was once again the hero who saved the City from certain doom, for my part perhaps a small footnote, that an unknown lady of babbage was cared for after fainting at the scene. I should have died then. That faint, my collapse as I gave up my own energy, my life to perpetuate Nareth's, to allow her to overcome Moriarty, it should have killed me, I do so wish it had been so, as it had been prophesied. Therein we see the nature of lies, how truth is mixed with untruth and presented to mislead, the terms of the bargain were that my life could be forfeit and I had taken that to mean death an end yet in truth it was but the start, my life was forfeit and became the property of the demon that had in its times before consumed many others, not least of whom was Nareth, my Nareth, Babbage's Nareth.

This maudlin mood progresses nothing, I should be plain. Nareth no more sought to save Babbage than to simply remove the competition. Mankind were hers, and no one was going to stand in her way. Yet the time was wrong, the intervention was needed but the time for the next stage has not yet come upon us. She has gone, left this town and will return when time demands it. So now I live with a shadow of fear. I fear she has not truly released me, but has left me dormant, hidden from the world, her weapon waiting patiently unheard of and unsuspected. I must disarm this weapon, I was once before ready to die to remove a threat from Babbage only to become the weapon of its doom. I will seek some final help but I am resolved in this matter. When modern science fails to convince me that I am clear of this shadow, that she is no longer in me, and in truth however can it succeed? So, if it fails, when it fails, only one path remains, the irrevocable, final and absolute removal of the threat, the weapon, known as Beq Janus.

1 comment:

Breezy Carver said...

/me nods .. sighs .. smiles
xoxoxo