Chapter Text
You stare up at the glittering night sky.
There’s the weight of a small child slung about your neck. You reach up to feel what is there and your hands make contact with what feels like a neck, though it is far too long and disturbingly tapered. White feathers fall away under your searching fingers. Old blood sticks to your palms. You’ve killed it, and now you bear it. Bad luck.
PERCEPTION- There you go now, blinking awake. There’s your ceiling.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT- Breathe, son. There’s something wrong with you.
ENCYCLOPEDIA [Medium: Success]- Albatrosses are large seabirds that can boast wingspans of up to 3.5 metres.
- Fuck are you on about?
- Breathe.
ENCYCLOPEDIA- I stated a true fact about the world.
- Great. Thanks.
LOGIC [Easy: Success]- You have work in an hour. Thanks to Volition’s vow, you woke up on time despite your broken alarm clock. Your trolley usually comes by in thirty minutes, which gives you fifteen to eat breakfast and fifteen to get clean.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Trivial: Success]- This ‘work’ thing fucking blows. Fieldwork is fine, you get loads of endorphins from that, but the office? Hate it hate it hate it. People don’t like you there and you have to sit still. Go back to sleep or jack off or something.
VOLITION [Easy: Success]- You’ve barely been at it two weeks. You’ll get used to it. Now get up and go to work so that you don’t get fired and subsequently evicted, please.
EMPATHY [Easy: Success]- Seeing your friend Kim makes you happy.
- Burrow back under the covers. Life is hard and this whole ‘go back to sleep or jack off or something’ sounds so much easier. Unemployment is a future you problem.
- Get something to eat.
KIM KITSURAGI- He is, as usual, infuriatingly early. You’ve tried to beat him to the precinct before and have never succeeded. He’s flipping through a case file, brows furrowed, and takes note of your approach. “Harry. We’ll be out on foot today. Just got a new lead in about this smuggling thing.”
ESPRIT DE CORPS [Medium: Success]- Fieldwork will cheer him up, the lieutenant thinks. He’s noted your particularly haggard appearance this morning already in the ten seconds you’ve been here.
- “Thank god. It was a hard morning, man.”
- “What’s the lead?”
- “So do you sleep under your desk or what?”
KIM KITSURAGI- He makes a quiet sound of mirth. “I’m sure it was.”
REACTION SPEED [Easy: Success]- The map that he tosses and you catch has a few red dots on it. One by the banks of the Esperance, one in the little town that stretches the length of and resides under the 81, and one by the lake in the center of Jamrock. You’re able to parse the order in which the two of you will be checking them out, because he’s helpfully marked them out for you.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY- Fuck, get a drink already.
VOLITION- Don’t do that.
LOGIC- Why’s Zappy here being so difficult this morning?
INLAND EMPIRE [Challenging: Success]- Electrical impulses rising to greet a gathering storm. Something approaches.
HALF-LIGHT- What? Wait, wait, what? Something is approaching?
RHETORIC- There is always a bug approaching you at any given moment.
HALF-LIGHT- That settles it. We gotta kill ourselves. That’s unacceptable.
VOLITION [Medium: Success]- What are you even talking about? There aren’t even any bugs in here. Calm down. What’s this about a storm?
SHIVERS [Easy: Success]- No storm scheduled for all of next week, actually, so.
KIM KITSURAGI- He taps you on the shoulder as he heads out to the front door, well accustomed to your habit of freezing mid conversation and familiar with the best way to knock you out of it. “Lake first. Come on.”
- “Kim, is there gonna be a storm?”
- “I want to go home.”
- Follow him.
ESPERANCE, ESPERANZA, SPERANŢĂ, HOPE- The river is magical at this time of night. Light from the banks colors it passing shades of yellow, red, white, silver, orange, and blue. It is cold and smells of fish and birds.
KIM KITSURAGI- He looks around, placing the folded map carefully into the pocket of his cargo pants. “Nothing. This was a waste of time.”
EMPATHY- A cold and pointless detour, one which he is displeased about having had to make.
INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success]- No. Not pointless. Something is waxing wrong.
- “We need to stay here for a minute. The world isn’t done with us yet.”
- Look at him.
KIM KITSURAGI- He shivers, once. The look in his eyes as he regards you is at once confused and interested. “Did you want to tell me something?”
FISHING MAN- A voice curls out from behind a hollowed out tree, situated firmly down into the mud of the banks. Neither of you had seen him, but he speaks, and as he does you see the faint ghostly white of a fishing line out into the water. “There aren’t enough of them.” It’s pitched up halfway, like a question from a person who isn’t sure if they’re asking one.
- Draw your service weapon and advance. He could be dangerous.
- “Who’s there?”
- “Enough of what?”
FISHING MAN- A white face pops out from behind the trunk, topped with a simple canvas cap. His eyes shine in the dark and swivel upwards, following his pointing hand. “Stars.”
INLAND EMPIRE- Look up.
KIM KITSURAGI- “Sir, are you on any substances?” His voice fades into the background as you study the sky.
PERCEPTION [Easy: Success]- Stars all right. There they are, twinkling prettily. The light pollution is less dastardly over the river.
- Are there any missing?
ENCYCLOPEDIA [Heroic: Failure]- Hard to say. He probably knows the sky better than you. Keep watching.
FISHING MAN- He ignores Kim’s question and scrambles over the mud towards you, practically on all fours. He tilts your chin up to a different section of sky and lines up your gaze with his extended arm.
KIM KITSURAGI- “What are you doing? Don’t touch him.”
PERCEPTION [Challenging: Success]- There. A hollow piece, shaded black and empty. And as you watch, another star blinks out.
HALF-LIGHT [Easy: Success]- Fear, deep in the pit of your stomach. This is terrible, apocalyptic.
FISHING MAN- He makes a wounded little noise of terror, watching with you.
- “Oh god.”
- “Kim, he’s… not lying. You need to look.”
- Look away. This is not your burden to bear.
KIM KITSURAGI- He crouches beside you and looks, steadying himself with a hand on your upper arm. He sucks in a breath. “The broken skua. It’s not there.”
LOGIC- A constellation.
EMPATHY [Easy: Success]- He’s terrified. All three of you watch that patch of darkness with identical set faces.
PERCEPTION- Another star is swallowed. Over the course of a minute, three more.
VISUAL CALCULUS [Medium: Success]- The stars are light-years away. They are not blinking out, they are being blocked by something. Impossibly large. And based on the speed the lights go dark, it is close to Elysium and getting closer.
CONCEPTUALIZATION [Easy: Success]- A leviathan.
FISHING MAN- He whimpers again.
KIM KITSURAGI- His grip on your arm tightens.
PERCEPTION- In quick succession, six more points of light vanish. Then, more. The pace is picking up and you can no longer count how many fall victim to the spreading, swallowing blackness.
HALF-LIGHT- There is nowhere to run.
PERCEPTION- Half the sky. You can almost make out the shape-
You are a black dog. Scattering at your great and matted paws are large white birds, eyes wide and startled and wholly pupil. The taste of blood is in your mouth.
“Death,” one bird screams, levering a wing at you like a finger of judgement. It slices across the skin of your throat. The others join in, forming an accusatory chant. “Death, death, death, death, death…”