I believe that I am in Hell,

Sep. 17th, 2009
A truth curse hits.

I'm a murderer. The murder was unjustifiable. Deplorable. Meaningless. I did it to find meaning, and I did it because Richard wouldn't. I had to be better than him at something. I believed idiotic things. I thought that crime was the truest expression of freedom--murder, the most liberating act.

Richard died because of me. He was a bastard, but he was all I had and he died because I thought I could redeem myself. Redemption is a lie. No one gets a second chance at life.

I joined the police force as penance.

I didn't regret being in prison--not at home and not here. I deserved it. I think I've paid enough now.

I think I love someone, if love is real and not a biochemical response to set stimuli. She should do better, but I don't want her to.

I should delete this. Truth is as rewarding as charity.


Oct. 15th, 2009
A calm statement of fact while others eat each other during a curse.

In situations like this, I believe maintaining a list of crimes committed is an impossible, unfeasible, and ultimately futile task. If the City is attempting to further undermine what citizen-imposed order exists here, it's succeeding. Nothing encourages disorder like a no-holds-barred bout of cannibalism.

The Aztecs were likely cannibals. They didn't eat people indiscriminately (as seems to be the case today); instead, they performed complicated rituals that involved the sacrifice and consumption of politically important prisoners of war. In some cultures, eating the dead was a vital funereal rite. They believed that the deceased would live on--in part--in the souls and bodies of those who partook of their flesh. Even until recently, women in a specific tribe in New Guinea ate the brains of their relatives out of respect. There was the Donner Party, as well...

There are more reprehensible cases of cannibalism--cases where the act had nothing to do with respect, ritual, or survival. Jeffrey Dahmer murdered and consumed parts of seventeen men over a period of thirteen years.

Midnight will be unpleasant. I assume more than a handful of those cursed won't react well to today's actions.


Oct. 19th, 2009
All of the monster-related curses get Justin thinking.

The unsolved murders are frustrating. Abby and I have nothing to go on, and I've heard little from other members of the police force (if it still exists). If I had the power to further the investigations--

But I wouldn't further them. Richard, for all of his arrogance, was an astute judge of character; how many times did he tell me that I'm all talk? I wouldn't have been capable of strangling the woman if he hadn't been so sure that I couldn't do it. It's been almost a year--two weeks short of a year--and I still can't decide if I'm glad he's gone. Yes, we were two halves of a whole, but, as a whole, we were monstrous.

It's a good month for montrosities. Today's curse, the cannibalism curse... I'm constantly disturbed by the City's ability to rob us of our wills, forcing us to take actions we would never otherwise take. I was fortunate. The curse allowed me to maintain a sense of control, and whatever drove us to eat flesh was satisfied with a taste of my arm. I neglected to mention that to Abby. She still doesn't know about the candlestick incident with Road (she attributes my limited control of my left hand's fine motor movements to my inherent clumsiness, I believe, so she may not need to find out about that). If she knew a fraction of the things I didn't tell her, she would never let me out of her sight. As much as I appreciate her concern, she can be overbearing.

I thought about this entry while I was walking today. Until now I've never considered the monsters in the Underground, since they're easy enough to avoid. What if they are permutated forms of those who can never leave the City? Are their names on the graves in the cemetery? I am hoping that an investigation into the issue will be more fruitful than any murder investigations.

Road will be involved. I'm not surprised; she's a monster in her own right and can likely dissuade hostile entities Underground from eating us. I'm going to bring my gun along. I doubt it will stop a monster or Road, but it may slow both down. (Could I shoot Road? I don't think I can. If the situation were dire enough...)

What if the monsters are nothing more than people who couldn't escape from the City? I'm afraid to find out. I need to, but the answer may be discouraging. I'm dead. I have no world to go back to. Will that condemn me to an eternity in the City? Over time, will I transform into one of them and lose myself? I've worked hard--I've worked to create who I am. I was nothing but pieces of an identity a year ago after everything I was died at the Bluff, but I'm someone now. I'm more than I've ever been. I have people--not absent parents or a diseased twin like Richard, but people who care. Does that make me less of a monster than I was when I murdered the woman?

If the monsters were people, they must be people who had the capacity for evil. Thinking about them scares me. How like them am I? I was almost convinced that I could be entirely forgiven and escape what I did. I'm unsure now. Maybe the City feeds on the wicked, draining them and warping them into monsters to guard the clock. No one who is good and innocent--no one like Shilo or Abby--could become monsters. The monsters are people like me. Perhaps nothing I do can change that.

I can hear the clock right now. Some say it counts down to the end of the world. At night when I'm thinking--times like this--I wonder if it isn't counting for each of us individually, measuring out the moments left to us. Maybe I'm becoming more of a monster with each tick.

I don't feel like a monster, but can monsters see their own deformities?


Nov. 5th, 2009
Abby leaves, Road kills people, and Justin breaks down.

Richard came back, Abby left, and someone else was murdered. I don't know which of these bothers me the most.

No, Abby's departure is the worst. She is--was--family, moreso than any of my genetic relatives. I didn't know how to react when she took the liberty of declaring herself my sister, but after a year... I became very used to being forced out of my apartment, anyway. Parties, clubs... she forced me into more social situations than I've been in in all the rest of my life combined. Perhaps I was resentful at the time. Everything is easier to appreciate in retrospect.

I don't like being alone in the lab. She's always been there, since before I came here. She was teaching me. I still don't know anything about forensic science compared to her; a year of informal lessons can't match a formal six or eight year education on the subject. The police force was already nearly inoperable. What now? I can't be the head of forensics. I shouldn't even be here. I still don't know how Abby convinced anyone to let someone so inadequately prepared join the police or why I've been entrusted with anything.

She held everything together. She was the constant in an inconsistent existence. I don't think I've felt the way I did when I saw her picture in the Hall of the Missing before. It was worse than when Richard died. His death seemed inevitable, as did mine. There was no surprise. Regret, maybe, but mostly a numbness that I can't describe. Having Abby leave feels more like being gutted.

Graverobber's gone, too. Shilo is upset. It doesn't seem fair to be upset about someone leaving when she already is.

I won't think about Richard.

Road's timing is impeccable. I know she's the murderer. Nothing makes the same kinds of wounds as her candles do. I don't fully understand why I'm surprised or upset. It has to be the timing. Something needs to not go wrong.

The ticking echoes in the lab. I can hear it in the apartment now, too, even with Neith. I didn't hear it there before.


Nov. 18th, 2009
Continuous murders plague Justin.

I don't understand this City. I don't understand Rip van Winkle, Millennium, or Road's involvement. I don't understand why any of us are here, why some of us leave but not others, why others find it necessary to resort to murder to keep themselves occupied.

It was about accomplishment when we did it. There were philosophical motivations, but first and foremost we wanted to do something meaningful--something that would be noticed. That was one of my reasons. I wanted to leave a mark on the world. It isn't like that here, though. With an ever-changing populace there isn't a collective memory to scar indefinitely. Few people even remember Millennium's previous incarnation.

If Rip van Winkle is seeking immortality for Millennium, she's going to fail. Nothing stays in the mind of the people--not in any world. (Does anyone remember me in my world?) The City's too jaded to respond to death in the way she might intend, as well. Unless the victim is someone close, they're largely ignored. It's a coping mechanism. If we stopped to consider every death--if we allowed ourselves to feel every time someone dies here--we would be overwhelmed. No one can care about everyone here without breaking. Perhaps that's the City's overarching goal... to rob us of our humanity. Some humanity has to be sacrificed to survive.

It's just a body. If you see it as anything but another body, it's too much. I've only made that mistake once, and I won't make it again.

I wish I could think about something other than death and what repeated exposure to tragedy does to the human mind.


Dec. 1st, 2009
Following the murders, doubts about the police, and being turned into a cute kitten.

I've seen a number of mentions of justice on the network recently. It hasn't been a popular topic of discussion before now. And why? Is it important only in the wake of highly visible murders? ...In the apparent failure of the City's police force to uphold justice? Or did the boxes that gave us a measure of control over our fate and the fates of others encourage this line of thinking?

This is not a just city. I doubt it has ever been just, and I doubt any law-enforcing unit can make it so.

In calling the City unjust, I have assumed that justice has a universal meaning and can be achieved. Hasty assumptions. I don't think we would agree on a single definition of justice, and we would be hard-pressed to give an example of what true justice looks like. The hypothetical city of Plato's Republic achieves a justice only by committing itself to small injustices--to lies, to inequality, to a lack of individual freedom. If the City were like that, there would be as much discontent as there is now.

What is justice to you? Is it a series of lies that ultimately benefit the community? Is it a leveling force that promises equality to all? Is it security at all costs? A trade between equals, as Nietzsche says? Individual freedom? The domination of good over evil? How do you propose we promote a just society in a city of dictators? How do we uphold any form of justice when the justice-keepers are as subject to curses, sudden disappearances, and random happenstance as anyone else?

Do we resort to vigilantism and assume that those who seek justice for us will uphold the same moral codes as we do? Do we break into a dozen--a hundred, a thousand--groups, each group pursuing its own form of justice? Do we remain idle while accusing those groups we feel should be protecting us of being corrupt or defunct?

These questions are not rhetorical. I'm curious.


Jan. 2nd, 2010
On the fear of being forgotten after the deities offer a false escape.

The police force is reforming. It may be a lost cause with no clear leaders and few officers, but Debra is trying. In spite of these recent developments, I've been contemplating resigning. The laboratory is uncomfortable without Abby there, but I'm reluctant to let others in to use the equipment. She wouldn't have allowed it. I realize that, logically, it makes no sense to operate the department the way Abby would have wanted; I doubt she'll come back. She's home... happily, I assume. In her own laboratory, with no memories of the City.

That bothers me--the fact that memories of the City seldom go with people. Instead of being forgotten in one world, I can be forgettable across any number of dimensions.

Trying to leave a mark on any world is, I think, a fruitless endeavor... moreso, perhaps, in the City than anywhere else. Whatever I might achieve here, be it for the greater good or otherwise, will be forgotten--if not immediately, then as soon as those who were impacted either go home or, if they're deceased, cease to exist entirely.

When the barriers fell...

It was too convenient. I was suspicious and I shouldn't have allowed hope to obscure my judgment. I'm never going to see Shilo's world, or any world that isn't the City. This bothers me less than I feel it should. I'm more disturbed by the idea that, once Shilo leaves the City, she won't remember me. There isn't an 'if'--no if she leaves, or if she forgets. Both are all but guaranteed.

I shouldn't think about it. If I think too much, I'll never talk to anyone. I won't think about it.


Mar. 12th, 2010
Eleven days after dying a gruesome death and clawing his way out of the ground...

It's been eleven days. I only know because I've been counting them off on the calendar. No distinct memories, but there are enough nightmares. If I can dream about the event, I should be able to remember it. The nightmares are too vague to be useful.

I haven't been more useful myself. It's irresponsible to miss work and the musical--the latter more so, maybe, because I was helping voluntarily. Volunteers shouldn't vanish. I should have sent a note to Lorne.

"Should." There's enough that I should do. I should thank Neil and Todd somehow (and I should remember what happened that night more clearly than I do). I should thank Shilo, no matter how inadequate thanks will be. I should return Tsurugi's clothes even if he doesn't want them. I should resign my position on the police force before I'm fired for being excessively truant. I should be more than capable of leaving the apartment and going to work.

I don't understand. I realize the event may have had psychological affects, but this is absurd. It's not as if it was the first time I've died; I doubt it was any more disturbing than the first time. There's no reason for the dreams or these irrational fears of leaving the apartment alone (or being alone in the apartment). I don't think I'm susceptible to psychological trauma. If I am, wouldn't I have noticed? Wouldn't I have already been traumatized? If anything, this last death should have impacted Shilo more than me as she remembers more.

Things have been foggy--not foggy... vague and indistinct?--since it happened. I have this pervading sense of being slightly less than real or in some way unattached from my body. Or empty. Not empty in a metaphysical or emotional sense. 'Hollow' might be a more precise word. It's not unlike the feelings after the murder and after Richard died.

There's no reason for it. This death was, by virtue of being forgotten, almost a non-event; there's no reason for me to feel at all abnormal. Is it possible that I'm the problem--that there's something fundamentally wrong with me?

Not entirely coherent, but I need to write thoughts down somewhere. Maybe this will make sense in time.

Nov. 5th, 2008
Upon arriving in the City.

It can take up to ten minutes for the condemned to die in a gas chamber. Potassium cyanide pellets are dropped into a holding tank of sulfuric acid, resulting in the generation of hydrogen cyanide gas. This gas kills via metabolic asphyxiation. Accordingly, the brain is one of the first organs to suffer its effects. Convulsions and hallucinations may precede unconsciousness and death.

Clearly, this is a premortem hallucination.


Dec. 25th, 2008
Justin's first Christmas in the City.

I purchased two gifts for myself today--an orchid (Laelia gouldiana) and a Keats anthology. Without a greenhouse to moderate temperature and humidity, keeping the orchid alive will be a challenge. Neith wants to eat its leaves.


Jan. 2nd, 2009
Reflections after discovering a Rimbaud anthology.

He's the Verlaine to my Rimbaud. Rimbaud gave up writing when he no longer had Verlaine... he was twenty-one.

What do I give up? Society? Humanity? All that is, collectively, considered good? "Good" is nothing more than something the majority has agreed upon... the martyred master-slave mentality. To turn away from society is to embrace freedom, not evil. Freedom stands in opposition to the law of the majority and the abstract notion of good, for it is ultimately selfish and criminal in nature. To be free is to be a criminal... to act without remorse, to take without guilt, to exist purely as an individual.

The ideal. Philosophically speaking, it's appealing. A will to power--a will to gain power at any cost, to ignore laws and norms. Freedom.

Can I be free?

It seemed clear and absolute--perfect. When I planned it with Richard, it seemed beautiful. Plausible. Freedom was ours for the taking... until it was time to act. Am I too human to commit myself to my own philosophy? A free man wouldn't feel betrayal, loneliness... gratitude, affection. Not to this degree. If I were free, I wouldn't work with the police... against crime, freedom, and everything I thought I believed in. I wouldn't worry about what Road's "game" will entail.

Is it possible for philosophy and emotion to oppose each other so completely within a single person?


Jan. 13th, 2009
Thoughts following a family-oriented curse.

Reading about so many families has compelled me to consider my own. Neither of my parents attended my execution; perhaps they were ashamed to have a murderer for a son. My father should have shown. I know my mother was indifferent, but he cared. I thought I could depend on him after the divorce, even though he had moved out of the state.

I was wrong. No one is fully trustworthy, not even the family we choose. Richard was supposed to be loyal. The suicide pact--

Richard betrayed me. First with the ordeal with Lisa, then when he confessed it all to the police. I know what they told him... it's what they told me. They said that only the one who physically killed the woman had to die... the other, if he cooperated, would receive a light sentence. I told them to go to hell. Richard told them everything. Going against the pact was the worst. Coward.

I trusted him, and he was willing to watch me shoot myself.

After Dad my father left and I started tutoring Richard, it was all about him. He was the only family I had and the only family I needed, in spite of his idiocy and philandering. There was... it was everything. He was everything I'm not, and I'm everything he wasn't. We complemented each other perfectly--we were two halves of a single whole. Together, we were a single perfect being. Nothing could have stopped us. He was dead when he betrayed me. It hurt to see his body on the rocks, but we were ripped apart before that. It's a severed connection that can't be repaired, even though he's as alive as I am in the City. I wanted to mend it... it hurts to be half a person.

He betrayed me a fouth time, and now I'm... some kind of pathetic, diminished thing, not even fully human. Everything's gone cold. I don't feel anything when I'm examining a corpse. At the same time, I have no faith in my ability to follow Road and the plan. Maybe I could have, but not after Abby said she loved me--as a younger brother. As family. I want to trust her, and I want her to trust me. I want family. This... unconnectedness? I can't do it, not after realizing my potential with Richard.

I need better liquor.


Jan. 28th, 2009
Following Richard's second betrayal and departure.

Richard's picture is in the Hall of the Missing. It shouldn't matter... he betrayed me, and we didn't talk.

It does, though.

I wonder where he is--where I'll be if I leave the City. I don't know if Richard believed in heaven or hell, but I don't. Do we just disappear if we leave? I was gone for a month or so, but I don't remember where I was. I don't think I was anywhere. Nonexistence. I'm afraid of not existing... I don't want to leave, not now that I have people who care. At least one person.

Maybe nonexistence is better, though. No thinking, no... none of this emptiness. Everything I thought I knew was wrong. I don't know what to do. There's no purpose.

Philosophy's dead. Richard's dead. I'm dead, even if I'm still functioning. I never noticed how cold I am...


Feb. 21st, 2009
After a particularly disturbing curse.

Why do the curses happen? What do the deities want from us?

Is this supposed to be some kind of punishment, or an experiment? Entertainment? You like watching us just... completely lose our minds?


Feb. 24th, 2009
Cursed with wrath.

There is no justice--no fairness, no law that is untainted by the interests of those who enforce it. For those of us who suffer due to the injustices of those in a position of power, fairness can only be delivered by subverting--and eventually overcoming--law and order. If we desire justice, we must take it ourselves.

No. No... it's an endless cycle. Once a new power is in place, it too will manipulate the justice system. Human nature.

We are, by virtue of being human, corrupt. We embrace ignorance, stupidity, and the mutilation of justice; we allow those with power to dictate our lives and rob us of our most basic of freedoms. If justice and righteousness demand it, we will surrender ourselves, our friends, our family, our beliefs--everything--for the sake of a false power. We will murder in the name of law, truth... God.

I murdered for an idea. The idea was law, truth, and dictator. The idea destroyed everything worth having, and I was in turn murdered.

That was the best thing California's justice system has ever done for the world.

The only way to purge the world of unfairness, corruption, lethal ideologies, and hypocrisy is to murder the unfair, the corrupt, the idealists, and the hypocrites. Is there anyone in this City who can say they're entirely innocent?


Mar. 19th, 2009
Life becomes unpleasant, so Justin becomes angsty.

Lan's gone. I don't know why I'm so bothered by his departure. Maybe the last few curses have been to blame. I don't like having my memories made public, particularly when those memories show how weak I am.

Before, when Richard and I were alive, I would have been ashamed. I would have denied my weaknesses publicly as I privately attempted to burn them away. Now... now what? While I'm far from proud of my own human weakness, it's not a source of shame. I don't know what to think about anything anymore, but I feel that weakness is an integral part of the human spirit (using the term 'spirit' loosely). Being human involves more than strength and power and will.

Humanity requires kindness. I don't think I realized that before.

Kindness, in turn, seems to involve a weakness, but it's not one that I want to give up. Although my philosophical ideas have become confused, I'm more certain than ever that I can do something significant with myself--even now, even dead. Even without Richard. I can mean something on my own.

Revelations aside, I'm still unhappy. Loneliness seems to be amplified in the City; it never bothered me this much at home. Maybe I should blame that on Richard, too. He was always around, even when I didn't want him to be. Especially when I didn't want him to be. There's no one like him here. No one who really understands. Road is Road, Abby has all of her friends and Carlos, and Shilo... I don't know. I think she would listen, but I forget what I want to say when I talk to her.

Between the rebellion against the deities and tonight's murder, I hope to be distracted enough to forgo thinking. I would like to spend time with someone tonight, though... I've been alone so often that I almost feel unreal.

I wonder if the dead can disappear. If no one can see or hear us, and no one thinks about us, do we fade?


Apr. 12th, 2009
Easter brings Justin back to life for the first time.

This curse is amazing, even if the event it's commemorating never happened outside of the minds of believers. My heart's beating, my skin's warm, I need to breathe--just amazing. When I was alive before, it was easy to take those things for granted. Now, though... have you ever watched the blood flowing underneath your fingernails? Have you ever tried to hold your breath until you passed out, only to find that your body interferes when you approach the edge of unconsciousness? And I can feel everything! Not numbly, but--

And drinking? Drinking isn't the same when you're dead. I don't know how being dead inside the City affects our physiology, but it makes it more difficult to feel really... really drunk. I didn't notice that until today.

This is the best Easter I can remember. Thank you, Christians. Your beliefs are asinine, but thank you.


Apr. 22nd, 2009
Rain encourages reflection and heavy drinking.

Instead of doing something I should do, I'm thinking. It's a good day for that, with the rain. Other people have been complaining about it on the network, but I like it. I put some of my plants outside to enjoy the weather.

The rain and recent departures keeps making me think of that verse from Comedy of Errors. What I told Abby about her two friends--how people like that are one person instead of two, and one goes where the other goes--cheered her up, I think. I didn't tell her that that kind of unity can be destroyed, leaving behind two half-persons instead of a single one. The line from Shakespeare...

“I to the world am like a drop of water
That in the ocean seeks another drop,
Who, falling there to find his fellow forth,
Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself.”

Unremarkable, invisible, lost in an ocean of identically unremarkable drops. Some people say you can't be alone when you're surrounded by people, but loneliness seldom fails to be at its worst in a crowd--especially when that crowd obscures you entirely. One drop of water can't be picked out of an ocean.

Richard might have been right when he implied that he was the only one who could pick me out of that ocean. He saw more to me than I could--more than I can, even now--and didn't mind the flaws and shadows. He knew things about me that I doubt I can ever tell Abby or Shilo. We never really talked about them--the things we hid inside ourselves--but we didn't need to. We were transparent to one another, and that's why it was frustrating. It's impossible to lie to someone when they can see your mental workings... find every word in your mind in one look.

Things haven't been that way with anyone else. I doubt that Abby or Shilo truly know me, shadows and all. How can they? They don't have that darkness in them--that potential for evil. Road can see that in me. I'm not afraid of her because she can see what I try to hide, though; I'm afraid because I see the same evil in her. She doesn't mask it, but it's the same thing. I need someone to see and accept that potential for evil, and she's the only one who can.

Last night, someone on the network asked about good and evil. "Do you think that even if you've done bad things, you can be a good person? How do you decide if someone's a good person or a bad person?" I couldn't reply, but I can't stop thinking about it.

Can I be a good person? Can I, in spite of the things I did and the ability I possess to do those things again? Murder was an abstract concept then--an idea, not an evil act. Once I had done it, though, it was real. I know that I am capable of killing, and that's not something that will disappear. Maybe I won't do anything like that again. I don't want to; thinking about choking that woman makes me sick. When I dream about it, I hate myself for doing it--for doing it for Richard to prove that I could follow my own flawed ideology. Sometimes I wish he would have killed me like I killed her. Guilt is crippling. I didn't lie when I said that we needed to pay for what we did.

For what we can do.

I want to think I'm different now--free of dogmatic philosophies, at least--but the fact remains that I can kill. I may kill in the future, under the right circumstances. That evil still exists.

We did pay, though--both of us. I don't know which of us paid the most. If life were fair, I would have died first and Richard would have gone on trial; he was stronger than me. He could exist without me. We were two halves of a single person, but he was the strong half. He would have enjoyed the media circus of the court, and he would have said something pithy prior to his execution. Richard would have fought every inch of the way. All I could do was confess.

Richard's funeral was on a rainy day. I was allowed to attend, although Cassie and the other officer went with me. It was closed-casket... there wasn't much left to Richard after he fell on the rocks. His family glared at me through the whole service. Their lawyer had this story. I was the killer. I lured poor Richard into my scheme, played with his mind, controlled him. His family believed it. I think my mother believed it. Even Lisa might have been convinced by the end of the final court session. He would have hated that. If anything, Richard would have wanted the credit; he would have wanted to be the one in control.

They had it wrong, anyway. Neither of us could be in complete control.

I almost laughed at the funeral. Almost. They made Richard out to be a saint and a helpless victim when he was anything but. I know he would have laughed, if he had been there.

I wonder what my funeral was like--if my dad came back for it, if my mother bothered going. If Lisa went. If no one went. If it was open-casket or closed, if anyone cried, if anyone thought about missing me. If it was raining.

Richard was here when I first came. I was mad at him then. He had talked, he had taken the bullets out of his gun, he had fired the shot at Cassie. I wonder if he hated me for taking the bullet for her. At the time, it seemed like the only way to keep him from making our situation worse; killing someone random is one thing, but murdering a police officer is another. I thought we could surrender. It was cowardly, but it would have put an end to some of the guilt. I don't regret dying--both of us deserved it. I regret the way we died. We were in it together, and we should have died together. We should have at least had a chance to talk.

I can't be mad at him anymore. He was who he was, I was who I was, and we accepted that. It was easy being mad at someone who was present.

On the network, people mourn when their friends return home. I don't understand why, when they'll likely get to see them again. Even if their friends were from other universes, they can at least know that they're happier back home. That's a loss that can be rationalized and overcome. How can the loss of half of myself be rationalized?

It hurts. Pretending I don't miss him hurts. Hiding that potential for evil--it's hard. While I've been in the City, I've built a new Justin--a Justin separate from Richard who can function independently, forgive himself, and escape the suspicion that redemption is little more than wishful thinking. Sometimes I feel like I'm really that person. The philosophies are gone (I'm not reading it much anymore... poetry is easier), that world is gone, the Justin who killed is gone. It's nothing but a lie. A comforting lie, but still a lie. I'm still who I was--I'm still half of a person. Maybe I'm a better half of a person than I was, but that doesn't make me complete. I always was the weaker half.

I should know better than to think, drink, and type at the same time.

I hope that everyone has had time to recover from their experiences in the desert.

That was a strange curse, and strangely anticlimactic. I don't know what I was expecting, but it's worrisome--the sudden split, the apparent lack of control that the deities had over the event (but their amount of control has been brought into question before now), the abrupt disappearance of the desert. The City has an inherent instability to it. I understand that. I wish I understood something beyond that.

Someone--Rosella?--mentioned an hourglass. It seems like sand has always been making random appearances in the City (as far as I can remember) and everything seems to revolve around time: the Clock always (or almost always) ticks, the twelve apartment complexes are arranged around the center of the City like numbers on a clock face, most curses last twenty-four hours, other curses are so regular that they could be marked on a calender.

Sand and time. Did the hourglass get turned upside-down? Is there any significance to the fact that one City was sand and the other was glass when glass can be made from sand? How much control do the deities have and how much power do the other beings that we've seen before have? How much power do we have?

Not that it matters. The City exists whether or not we're here, whether or not we remember, and whether or not we care enough to worry about what it is and what its purpose is. Maybe the City isn't a sentient thing or a twisted experiment; maybe it's a world like any other where individuals don't mean anything. Maybe the Clock would keep ticking if we all vanished (if a clock works in a universe where no one can hear it, does it make a sound?). Right now, I'm inclined to think of us as grains of sand in relation to the City as a whole.

( Filtered to Neil and Todd // Unhackable )

( Private // Off Network )

[ooc: The triumphant return of mopey tl;dr that no one can read!]


[COMMENTS]

[All Justin had wanted was lunch. Unfortunately, the café seems to have embraced a clothing-optional philosophy... along with the rest of the City. So much for lunch or, for that matter, ever leaving the apartment again once he gets there.]

There's a... a curse today, I assume. If you're not affected and you haven't been out today--if you haven't seen anything yet--just stay at home.

Don't check the network, either.


[ooc: Decidedly not cursed. Mortify at will, action as you like if your character is in the vicinity of Café Juliet or just running around outside.]

[COMMENTS]

[The video opens to show an exceedingly nice terrarium sitting on a desk, which is located in the room Justin is borrowing from Neil and Todd. A copy of "The Importance of Being Earnest" is lined up neatly to the left. Aaand zoom in.]

From the Diapheromeridae family. [The view shifts to show this beauty.] And this one's from the Phylliidae family.

[Justin, clearly behind the camera, sounds even quieter and less enthusiastic about life than usual, which is an accomplishment.]

I plan on naming one Gregor and one Mendel, but I'm not sure which should be which. I'm open to suggestions.

[The video switches off.]


[Text]
I've never been interested in entomology, but this combination--plant and animal--is interesting. Worth buying on impulse, now that I'm financially secure for the moment. The bank had an account for me. I made decent money before I left.

The network is a good place to ask open-ended questions. I'd like to ask this: What do you do when you feel as though you're missing something? Not that you've misplaced something, but that there's something fundamentally important to you as a human missing. Drink? Are there any more creative answers?

[LINK TO COMMENTS]

[Justin, unaffected by the cold induced by sitting near the fountain that the City had seen fit to drop him into during winter, finally tires of waiting for what he’s convinced what must be a trick of the mind to dissipate and resolve itself into the nothingness of death. For a lack of any other distractions, he fumbles with the device he had found in his pocket earlier.

He doesn’t fully understand why he would bother hallucinating what resembles a camcorder. The brain is truly a strange and unfathomable thing.]

Am I dead yet?

[It’s a ridiculous question. He still exists enough to imagine things; the answer is clearly no.]

If not--if not, I hope this doesn't last long.