A Gamer's Guide 427 (Patreon)

“We only have one mirror, so you won’t be able to see what’s going on this time,” Gecko says, guiding me into position, seating me cross-legged on the floor while she sits on a chair behind me. She put the mirror kind of in front of me, so I can sort of see myself and what’s going on, but not quite what she’ll be seeing. I pretend not to be bothered by my face. “I’ll just have to narrate what’s going on. Oh, unless you’re good enough at reading my mind to see through me?”

“It’s a good idea, but I am nowhere near that level yet. It’s mostly a crapshoot so far… Flashes and singular phrases and stuff. How the heck did Pain read my mind so effortlessly all the way back then…? Actually, the more I think about it, the way the god of multitudes operates is kind of terrifying. I’m becoming a whole god, but I still really only have power over one kind of stuff—hope. But the god of multitudes can control anything. Aren’t they sort of omnipotent? Oh, but they have to be democratic about things, so I guess it all evens out.”

“Tit for tat,” Gecko says, prodding the back of my head with her fingertips. I’ve never been to a barber before, but I’m starting to think this is what it might be like. “Just a little off the top, sir?”

How did she…? “Oh, yes,” I say, trying to find a character. “And a shave. A very close shave. If I walk out of here with skin on, I’ll be demanding a full refund.”

“Of course, sir, wouldn’t expect anything else,” she says, materializing her scissors. “Now, I know this isn’t what you asked for, but I have a great idea for how to really revitalize your face…” Sticking the scissor in the back of my head, at the nape of my neck, she cuts a single line up, across my hairline, and then sticks her fingers inside the slit she made. With a single movement, she perfectly removes my entire face, like it’s one big hood, letting the skin and hair dangle off the front of my neck. “How’s this?”

I stare at my own skinned face. Maggots, displaced, gently drip off my cheeks. The top of my skull is totally exposed. I can see my teeth, and if I open my jaws, even more maggots fall off, but I can also see my tongue, which does indeed look a little like a slug. “Hmm,” I say, a noise I shouldn’t physically be capable of, “I’m not sure. Do you have it in pink?”

“Sorry, we’d need to special order that,” she says, sweeping maggots off the top of my skull. For some reason, I prefer looking at my own maggoty skull rather than the face I was wearing. “Quick question,” she says, angling the back of my skull here and there, “but didn’t you break your skull earlier today?”

“Oh, yeah, I did, didn’t I?” That had been a strange feeling. The wet crunch had been pretty satisfying, though.

“That’s weird, because your skull looks pretty whole now.”

“It does? Hey-hey-hey! Maybe that means I can recover stuff?”

“We can always hope,” she says. “Either way, I’m going to try to pry open one of your cranial plates nicely, but if I can’t, then I’ll have to grab my hammer.”

“Perfectly understandable,” I say. In the mirror, I can see her grabbing her dagger, angling it at the back of my skull. The tip of it scrapes against my skull. Scrape, scrape, scrape, scrape. Hm. This isn’t what they did last time. How did it happen last time? A little stick, I think. A tiny thin metal rod. That’s what he had. And a hammer, to get through, and then he flipped it open. And after that…

“Oh, there we go,” Gecko says, removing one of the plates of bone. No, coral. It’s coral now. “I’ll just… Oh, ew.”

“What is it?” I ask. “What’s in there?”

“It’s like… No, I don’t know what this is. It’s just…” She reaches in, but I can tell by the look on her face that she’d really rather not. Her fingers grope through my skull. Poke poke poke poke. Slosh slosh. She pulls out a handful of cloudy, half-translucent sludge, too viscous to be disconnected from the rest in my skull, but liquidy enough to look almost like water. “What is this? What the hell is—” 

Poke poke poke poke poke poke. 

I don’t feel  so   good.

“Oh, wait,” she says, leaning in closer, realization dawning on her face. “I know exactly what this is. It’s—”

I can’t sit up anymore and my upper body falls to the floor immobile and unmoving, open head knocking against the stone floor, arms splayed out, the sludge slowly draining out of my skull and onto the floor in big slimy pieces. I’m all over the floor. That’s not good. 

“Oh, shit, are you—” She freezes and falls out of her chair, onto the floor, but she doesn’t totally mirror me, because once she’s on the floor, she’s still able to move, able to pull herself together, draw herself into a little ball, knees to her chest, hands clawing desperately at the back of her head, trying to keep it in, gasping between hyperventilating breaths, “No, no, stop that, stop it, mommy, don’t take that, that’s me, stop it, stop it, please, Simel, help me, stop looking at me like that, stop, stop, I’m still your friend, please, please, don’t take me out, I don’t want to, and the monsters, please, mommy—”

I look at her. Then I look in the mirror. Hm. The way I’m lying, it almost looks like my head cracked, like a dropped egg, and now I’m spilling out. That’s silly. 

“It’s okay,” I mutter. I can’t move, but I can speak. Even if my jaw isn’t moving, I can still talk to her. “It’ll all be okay. This won’t kill you. You won’t die from this. You’ll be okay. It’ll all be okay in the end.”

She warbles incomprehensibly, one leg occasionally kicking like a dead animal, but eventually, after a minute or so, she stops. Her breathing returns to normal, and once she’s cried it all out, she’s able to sit up again. Her gaze moves around the room, slowly, like she doesn’t remember where she’s supposed to be. Finally, it falls on me, where I lie, dropped egg style, looking blandly up at her. She blinks at me. 

I watch as she pulls herself over next to me, and then puts my head in her lap, even though it’s all slimy. She looks down at me, but she isn’t saying anything. I guess there’s nothing for her to say. I can’t think of anything to say, either. Comparatively, I think she’s the one who needs soothing right now. I mean, I’m fine. Just a spot of the move-nots. I’ll be better in a few minutes or so. “It’s okay,” I mutter up at her. “You’ll be alright.”

She wipes her face, but the tears still come, dropping heavily onto my face. One gets in my eye, but I can’t blink at it, because I haven’t got any eyelids. “Like hell it will,” she grumbles, voice hoarse. “How are you even alive?”

“I don’t know,” I mutter. In the corner of my eye, I can see the goop in my head spill across her legs. Gross. “What is that stuff?”

“Egg whites,” she says. “I could smell it. It’s just egg whites.”

“Egg whites, huh,” I say. “Yeah. That fits. You could probably ask the goblins to fry it up for you. Egg-white omelet. Or maybe poached egg-white? You could make pancakes out of it.”

“I hate egg whites,” she says, half-choked by tears. “It’s the grossest thing I know.”

“You don’t mean that,” I say, appalled. “Egg whites are the best part!”

“It’s slimy and worse than jelly and sometimes there’s this little umbilical cord part in it that’s tough and chewy and gross. Eggyolks are much better—better for everything. Pickle them, brine them, put them raw on tartare, put one on your rice… It’s the best.”

“How can you even say that? Boil it and it gets all horrible and mealy, like potatoes. I hate them. Only way I can eat them is by mashing them together with a shitload of kaviar. And not the fancy kind you non-Swedes use, I mean the pink stuff.” I rub my face with both hands. “Dang, I miss kaviar. Egg and kaviar sandwiches. I haven’t had one of those in years. Any longer and I won’t be a Swede.” I try to give her a sly grin, but it’s kind of hard without lips. “I usually make mine with only egg whites. Put all the gross egg yolks to the side.”

Somehow, and I guess this makes her stronger than I ever was, she musters a smile. “I’ll steal them, then. If you don’t want them.”

“That sounds good.”

She pats me on the shoulder. “Can you sit up?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to?”

Hmm. That’s a tough one. “Not really.”

“Okay. Is it alright if I turn you over and put your nasty egg whites back inside your head?”

“Sure.” She flips me over, squishing my face into her leg, and then she doesn’t do anything else at all. “What’s up? Is something wrong?”

“No, I just… There’s something else in here,” she says. “I couldn’t really see it before with all the egg whites in the way, but now that they’ve spilled out…”

She doesn’t want to ask it. Man, I really like her, she’s so nice to me. “It’s okay,” I say. “You can grab it.”

“You’re sure? I mean, considering…”

“It might trigger something, but… If it does, I know I’m in good hands. If that makes any sense.”

It takes a few moments for her to make her decision. I can kind of feel the way her mind processes it, going over the words, trying to decide whether I’m being polite or genuine. But, in the end… “Yeah. Okay. I’m… I’m going in. If it hurts… or if it bothers you… Just say the word.”

“I will.”

Her fingers brush against the inside of my skull. They feel warm. His didn’t. They were cold, clinical. He put metal tools in there to pull me out. Sawed off little parts, poked them, turned them over with tongs. That’s not what she is. I feel her, so focused, her head so close to my skull, her warm breath roiling against the back of it, her mind buzzing with concentration. And then…

Something touches me. Something soft and warm clenches around me. Tugs a little.

“Does it hurt? Or…?”

“It’s fine,” I say. 

“I can’t really see what it is, so I’m going to pull a little now.”

“Okay.”

She pulls. Something inside my brain unwinds, thread from a spool, but it doesn’t hurt. It feels alright. Like pulling the string of a winding toy. And she pulls it, out, out, out, all the way out of my skull, until the little piece of me she’s holding is in the light, in her gaze, in the fresh cold air. She turns it over. Holds it over her head. Examines it closely, eyes sharp. Finally, she lowers it, turns to me, and says, as plainly as one would announce a relative’s death, “It’s a bean.”