Every now and then, a close or maybe not-so-close friend of mine will start seeing some girl I don't know. Some pale-skinned brunette with small eyes and small breasts, most makeup she's ever worn is a stroke of black pencil eyeliner, if even that. Oppressively nonthreatening in appearance. Ethnicity is probably some mix of Irish and German, but no one asks because no one cares. As I've said, I don't know her. Yet I have an exact profile on her due to seeing her clones cycle in and out of my life. Sometimes I wonder if she really is as I see her. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just going insane.
Yeah, you laugh. You're going to make a joke, "Going insane?" You don't know how fucking serious this is, I damn near snapped on Saturday. Same Saturday we were all supposed to go clam digging. Only a certain not-so-close friend of mine just had to bring… you can probably guess.
"An item of pleasure? On our ship? Comrade, are you high?"
"Uh, it's Stacy. As in, my girlfriend." (Her actual name wasn't Stacy. But that's how I remember their names anyway.)
"I know full well what it is, and you can't use it here." All the while, 'Stacy' is just smiling politely at nobody. It's all she knows how to do, aside from cuddling and taking quirky photos of herself. She looked so disgustingly bland, so extremely average there, like some completely expendable Untermensch-
"CAIUS, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"
I don't even know where that sword came from.
I was running before I could even process what was happening. All the blood, flowing all over me, soaking deep into my holiest of flesh. Even when I was far, far away from that wretch, the blood just multiplied, as if it were trying to smother me. I dared not even open my mouth to scream, lest it take my throat. I could not stop running, for after all I'd have plenty of time to rest when I'm dead. My feet carried me miles, though it felt as if only seconds had passed.
So now here I am, riding a bike in an endless loop across an abandoned factory complex. No matter how far I ride, I keep ending up in the exact same place. Something has drained the color out of everything here… There's the body of a priest lying against a wall, head blasted to pieces. I can see the splatter behind him, perfectly symmetrical, looking like a distorted, monstrous face. It looks like murder. On second glance, it's shaped like some hellscape I dreamed about when I was young… It was a suicide. Perhaps it's just a Rorschach test. It's me.
There's a statue of Baphomet, also curiously missing its head, replaced with the skull of a cat. Perhaps if I find the statue's original head, a secret passage will open up in one of the buildings which will take me to the cellar. (Hey, do you know any way to escape from here?)
I get the feeling that this isn't my bike.
