TRANSDERMAL 7.01 (Patreon)

New arc baybe! Arc 6 was officially the longest at 19 chapters, but that felt like an organic place to change things up and schooch things over. Time to go back to the real world, and thus, deeper into the madness, of course!

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.qɘɘlꙅ uoʏ ɘɿoʇɘd oǫ oƚ ꙅɘlim ꙅ’ɘɿɘʜT .ƚɘʏ ɘᴎob ƚoᴎ ɘɿ’uoY .qu ƚi qɘɘꓘ

 .ꙅɘɔɒlq uoʏ ɘʞɒƚ lliw ƚɔᴎiƚꙅᴎi ƚɒʜT .biʞ ,ƚiʜꙅ ƚuꓭ .ᴎɘqqɒʜ oƚ ꙅɒʜ ꙅiʜƚ ʏɿɿoꙅ oꙄ .ɘɿɘʜ ɘɿ’uoʏ ʏɿɿoꙅ oꙅ m’I

.ɘɿɒ uoʏ ɘɿɘʜ ,ƚɘʏ bᴎA .ɘʇil ꙅ’ɘᴎoɘmoꙅ ʇo ƚiuꙅɿuq ɘviƚɔɒ ,lɒᴎoiƚᴎɘƚᴎi ƚꙅɿiʇ ɿiɘʜƚ bɘmɿoʇɿɘq ʏɘʜƚ ɘɿoʇɘd bɘᴎiɒɿƚ llɘw ɿo bɘʞɒoꙅ boold ʏƚƚɘɿq ɘɿɘw woᴎʞ I ɘlqoɘq ɘʜƚ ʇo ƚꙅoM .bɘꙅꙅɘɿqmi ɘv’uoʏ ,ꙅꙅɘᴎbooǫ ƚud ,ɘmiƚ ʏm ɘɔᴎiꙅ ǫᴎol ƚɒʜƚ ᴎɘɘd ꙅ’ƚi ɘʞil ƚoᴎ ꙅ’ƚI .ꙅʏɒwʏᴎɒ ,ʏlɿɒɘ ꙅiʜƚ ƚoᴎ .uoʏ ᴎi ƚi bɒʜ uoʏ ʞᴎiʜƚ ƚ’ᴎbiꓷ .doꞁ booᎮ .biʞ ,ᴎmɒꓷ

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Waking up is a slow process. It takes time, adjusting to leaving MEAT without dying first. Usually that’s the trigger that kicks me out, or at least, that’s what’s been the trigger much more often than not. Bit depressing, that.

Coming out of it willing is gradual. Like coming up out of a bath of water that’s the exact same temperature as my body, so I can only feel that it’s changing by the currents and waves. Slowly, one body becomes distant, while another comes closer, pulling me out of one vessel and into another, like water being poured from one cup to the next. 

And yet, there’s also continuity. The shape changes, but the “me” stays the same. And with it come a few new anchors as well. 

I wake up sitting in my chair, though I was not seated when I went into the game. 

One hand is reshaped, made mine by way of being made strange. The Glove clicks and whirrs and creaks as I move it, keeping it to the form of a human hand for now, but aware of all the ways it can spring open and deploy itself out into more. In my throat, down in my chest, there is a drumbeat, and I feel little beings dancing to it, a sensation I haven’t felt since my first Bloodling (and the one I still want most to bring back) sacrificed itself for me, but multiplied. 

In the back of my mind, my awareness of someone I barely remember and know everything about. 

Hey, boss, she thinks, and I know that she has thought that, without ever asking for it or hearing it to begin with. 

“...hey,” I say back. Because leaving her in silence is the only thing worse than talking to her. 

I put the headset on my desk, exhaling. I don’t remember putting on the haptic feedback sensors, but I take them off, one by one, putting everything close together. Once it’s been separated from me, I walk over to my closet, digging open a shoebox I haven’t used for anything in years and shaking out the dust. 

The headset, both MEAT and BLEED, and the assorted machinery of it all goes in the box, cords and all, whether or not the fucking thing still needs electricity. I put it all together, and then place it back in my closet, all the way at the back. And then, just to be sure, I dump a bunch of dirty clothes and old shoes over top of it, so it’s completely hidden from sight. 

Fortunately and unfortunately, my room is so messy that it barely looks any different. 

I let out a long, slow breath, taking a seat back at my desk again. The chair is warm from my ass, making it seem that I’ve been sitting here a while, though again, I was not seated when I reached up in the game and slowly pulled my brain out of my skull. 

Logging out wasn’t very fun, no. 

I can think about it later. The trauma of it just kinda falls onto the pile at this point, not even the worst thing I’ve done or had done to me this week. No pain sensors in the brain, thank fuck, and it did feel like it came out in one solid chunk without much resistance, which made the whole thing way too easy and still horribly difficult and–

I can think about it later. It goes on the pile.

I mill about for a bit, getting my shit together, making sure that everything I need is close by. I breathe, tasting air that doesn’t smell of scabs and grave-cold for the first time in what feels like days and was probably hours. I change out of the clothes I was wearing before, letting the sweat-drenched fabric fall into the dirty clothes bin (that really needs to be washed. Preferably, like, today). 

When I feel like my head’s on mostly straight, I sit back down. 

Up and down. Stay this time. 

On my table are three important items. 

On one, my journal. Not the most crucial implement, not since I first wrote down my “character sheet” in it, but updating that seems useful, and some place to take notes that Dick can’t look into with his weird tech-flesh abstraction feels smart. I can start compiling notes, use them to share information, maybe, and to make sure I’m not forgetting things. 

In the middle, my laptop. Probably (definitely) compromised, and not in the sort of way that a VPN can fix. No, I’m probably better buying off an entirely new one, except for one of the very last things I did inside MEAT before I “logged out”. 

On the left side, a gun. 

A Glock 47, Liam had called it as he walked me through the steps. There is one magazine currently loaded into it, another beside it. Ten rounds in each, though only nine in the loaded one, because one round has been loaded into the chamber.

I’ve checked it twice. Checked the safety a dozen times, just to make super duper sure it’s on. I’m not so stupid as to leave it cocked or with the safety off, even if I know that keeping it loaded in the house is famously bad for people. And statistically the way that most gun owners experience a death by gun is by having a loaded pistol in the house that someone messes with or where an accident happens. And–

Well, and it’s a gun. 

My three biggest unaddressed tools, at least of the ones I can put on my desk, staring back at me. 

I sigh, low and slow. 

Alright. One step at a time. 

I get up and walk over to the dirty clothes hamper. 

By the time I’m done loading the clothes on the floor and on the bed and over the desk chair into it, it’s literally bulging, completely overflowing, but I’m an expert at overloading my laundry. I balance it all the way down to the basement, and in a few minutes, it’s all been stuffed into the washer at once, put on a cold wash, and dumped full of detergent.

Bad for the clothes? Yes. Causes shrinkage? Sure, sometimes. I also simply do not care. 

Then I make myself a sandwich. 

I don’t remember the last time I had a genuinely good meal. It’s been a while. I also don’t remember the last time I–

No, I do remember, actually. Had some hefty calories in that diner with Warren. Was that earlier today, or yesterday? Time is fucked for me. One thing I actually don’t remember is when I last slept, except that it wasn’t within the last 24 hours. 

With the laundry spinning and my sandwich eaten (and then a second sandwich, after. Pb&Js), I perform the next most crucial step of my plan.

I take a shower. 

Because I’m pretty sure it’s been longer since I’ve slept since I’ve showered, and that is a distressing thought. I’ve probably been out and about smelling like absolute shit, which only puts Warren’s kindness to me in a better and more understandable light. Gods, I probably grossed the hell out of Sarah. Does the house stink too?

I make sure the bath goes quickly. I’m not really interested in or patient enough for a deep cleanse right now, but the act of washing myself, of using soap and shampoo and conditioner and one of those scrubbing stones, is enough to make me feel more myself in a way that little else does. We are all our little rituals, and this one, deeply personal yet also intimately feminine to me, is pretty damn important to me. It might not be much, but compared to my old three-in-one soap-shampoo combo and the quick rinse, it stands as a sign of how much I’ve changed from who I used to be, of the choices I’ve made and make on an active basis to be who I want to be. 

I stay in the water until it goes cold, and then a few minutes more. When I finally emerge, the rumbling of the washing machine has faded to nothing, letting me know to go down and check it. 

Wearing sweatpants and a simple t-shirt, I transfer everything over to the dryer. 

Then I take a seat at my desk, and open the journal.

Deep breaths. Nice and slow. 

Ok. 

Focus, me.

My gaze shifts as the little shapes swimming in the jelly of my eye take priority over the world beyond them, filling my gaze with the strange language in which MEAT shapes me and my world.

{MANIFESTATION OF [00000000]}

GENUS: HOMINIDAE HOMINIA HOMO SPECIES: SAPIENSSTATS:

ADAPTATION

CANALISATION

EVOLUTION

SYNCHRONICITY

🔺

🔺

🔺🔺🔺

ORGANS: CUTANEOUSHOMO SAPIENS SKIN

SKELETALHOMO SAPIENS BONE

MUSCLEHOMO SAPIENS MUSCLEHOMO SAPIENS TENDON

CIRCULATIONHOMO SAPIENS CIRCULATIONHOMO SAPIENS HEART

RESPIRIUMHOMO SAPIENS LUNGS LUNGS

GLANDULARHOMO SAPIENS LIVERHOMO SAPIENS PITUITARY GLAND

NEUROLOGOSHOMO SAPIENS CEREBRUMUNDERDEVELOPED [0000000000]

SENSORIAHOMO SAPIENS SENSORIA

DEGUSTATIONHOMO SAPIENS DIGESTIVE TRACT

SKILLS:GLIMPSE BEYOND ⦽⦽⦽INTERPRATIVE CRAFTSMANSHIP ⦽⦽⦽⦽SCULPTOR OF FLESH ⦽GRAVE’S REST ⦽

MUTATIONS:EXTRASPATIAL SENSITIVITY 

SYMBIONTS:DIVINE BLOODLING (VII)THE GLOVETERATOMIC CONJUNCTION

Slowly, I go through line by line, copying every bit of it down into my journal. When I’m done, an entire page is taken up, the writing scribbled and awkward without my being able to accurately see the paper while my sheet is up, and the writing is…

I mean, I can read it. And know what it says. But it does sort of border the realm between “bad writing” and “potential alien language”. Which… fuck, for all I know, that’s what the character sheet is, and my brain’s just interpreting it as english. Hell, that’s probably exactly what it is. I’ll have to show this to Jay sometime to check. 

I really have to text Jay. He’s probably fucking terrified for me. He’s probably been blowing up my phone, a device I have been studiously ignoring for… all week. 

Once the journal’s got my sheet written down, I start to add notes. 

Small ones at first. Vague bullet points and synopsis notes about what I think each of the four stats does, the general definition of my symbionts, what I think my mutation does, pointing out the weird organs, etc. Once everything’s annotated, I move on.

One page of notes for each of the figures I’m aware of in town, with an extra blank space kept for additional information to come. The brute in the woods, Dani and Leisha, that Michael guy with the puppet, Dick with his eye-cameras, little Brian with his quasi-necromancy, and, of course, the mill. Everyone and everything that I know of in town that has something strange about them, that has some confirmed supernatural powers. And Warren, because supernatural or not, his shit’s weird, to not be affected by Dick’s weird eye-wounds covering the town.

Then another section. For not-town things. 

Friend!Computer… and whoever that bee lady was. I think it was bees, maybe. Everything from when I died was confusing, but I remember being pulled back, talked to by someone alongside that weird machine, and it doesn’t make for a lot of writing but it does make for a bit. Enough to remind myself that there are things I either haven’t met yet or which aren’t necessarily connected to the town.

Example: the icons on my mini-map “in-game”. There are two of them that I really can’t confirm, that being the theater behind the craggy hills and the massive broken hand with the tree inside of it, and the cauldron, which I suspect is Dani, is unconfirmed. 

They each get their own page, though they get left mostly blank. 

Then a few pages for “recipes”, the things I’ve built with meat so far (the Glove, the crawler, my pipe bombs), and then… I run out of things to write. 

Not entirely. I could start going into theoreticals, into plans, into new ideas for recipes, into vague concepts that I have no way to confirm or deny. 

But I’m doing this to be proactive. To recover, get my shit together, and then circle back around to doing something new. If I start using it to distract myself or procrastinate, then there’s no point. 

I close the journal, putting aside my pen, and go get my clothes from the dryer. 

It’s been sitting in there for a while. Writing all that took a lot more time than I thought it would. When’s the last time that I wrote so much stuff by hand? Long enough ago that I have to stretch my wrist, rolling it around to deal with the ache.

It’s mostly still wet. Or moist, at least. Consequences of shoving two weeks worth of laundry into the wash all at once. 

I put it to dry for a second cycle, and go back upstairs.

No more procrastination. 

Text Jay. Check in on Jane. Sleep. Check to see what day it is so I can find out when the hell I need to go back into work. Sleep. Plan out my next steps with everything I need to do, all of the things I still need to explore and work on and find and ugh. 

Rescue Brian. Find out what to do with a kidnapped child I’m “rescuing”. Kill Richard. Don’t get caught by the police while I do it. Clear out the fungal mill. Figure out my powers. Protect Jay. Figure out what’s wrong with the hunters in town. Figure out how to kill the big beast in the woods so it can’t hunt me down again. Get more money in the bank. Protect Sarah. Maybe help that Michael guy. 

All just to start.

Leave it. Push it away. Don’t get overwhelmed.

One thing at a time. 

I turn to the laptop. 

Compromised for sure. Dick definitely knows my IP address, probably has spyware magically loaded into my fucking modem to track my keystrokes and all sorts of shit. And whatever the hell people like him do when they’re illegally using surveillance technology against people.

I open it anyways. 

I click the power button, making sure to keep it disconnected from any power source, and tape a bit of duct tape over the camera (which I honestly probably should’ve done years ago anyways), and watch it boot up. 

Window screensaver. Loading bar. Auto-login. 

Apps start to auto-load as I watch, not touching anything. 

And then, like I had hoped for, I get a notification. A program notification, down at the bottom-right of the screen, not holding any icon I recognize. 

Ping!

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