The Moon Is On Fire | CreepCast

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swallowing speaking breathing eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk side effects may include allergic reactions neck and injection site pain fatigue and headache allergic reactions can include rash welts asthma symptoms and dizziness don't receive botox if there's a skin infection tell your doctor your medical history muscle or nerve conditions including als lugarix disease myasthenia gravis or lambert eaton syndrome and medications including botulinum toxins as these may increase the risk of serious side effects why wait ask your doctor visit botox chronic migraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more welcome back to creamcast today we're going to be reading a story called am i the only one that sees that the moon is on fire uh this is by m59 gar which is the author of psychosis also we just read them again recently didn't we yeah we read them in the uh grab bag we did we read them in the story the empty prison right about the prison where there's the thing on the lower floors that keeps rising every week that was uh but yeah we've read there before and psychosis is one of like the all-time yeah because it came out of the early days and is one of the few that people look back on and they're like oh that was actually a good story yeah no it's a uh it's a dynamite it's like one of those uh yeah all-star kind of like mount rushmore kind of titles for creepypastas yeah so uh always happy to cover him uh which by the way i've that's a i've opened up a tab uh to try to explain who this guy was and it was just a picture of myself so don't know what that was about his actual name is matt damerski uh and we are going to have linked in the description his website www.mattdamerski.com he also has books for sale on amazon uh and smashwords and uh he also has a patreon so there's a ton of waves to support this artist uh like i said he's one of the all-timers um and he's always writing something like if you go to his reddit account um he is like oh this book's in the works that book's in the words so it's cool to see people who've been writing this long and are continuing to do it and find success with it so if you want to support him uh he will be linked in the description but as far as the story we're reading today i mean the title is too weird you know to not i love to not do something with right it got it got me hooked well i saw that uh someone commented i believe on we did that catfish episode on patreon um and this is one of the comments or suggestion and i just i thought the name was really cool and it's just always a pleasant surprise when you see an interesting title and you go and you're like oh fuck this guy you know so yeah i'm excited to see what it's about i wonder if it's going to have a uh not necessarily sun vanished vibe but just like it feels like it's going to be the surreal kind of i'm hoping for almost like a bit of a cosmic horror kind of thing uh yeah as always you know me love me you and your love crafty and oh yes you love crafty and stuff but i'm hoping that uh i don't know i love whenever people set up these things where uh i mean it is kind of like psychosis too where the author is questioning his own sanity with things and like you know seeing things that maybe aren't there that other people can't see always a lot of fun so i'm excited to dive into this one um for people who are watching youtube consider checking us out on audio platforms like spotify and apple podcast all that jazz and giving us a nice rating there it does help and if you want extra episodes like i said we just did the catfish episode we're going to be recording another one this week uh patreon exclusive episode if you want some more episodes on the side feel free to support the channel and get you some extra grub there is here are you ready i think grub's a good way to describe it that feels fitting grub grub grub yes i am ready so it's three-part story we'll begin with part one part one am i the only one that sees that the moon is on fire i know this might be an odd question to ask on a mental health forum but does anybody else see that the moon is on fire well it doesn't waste any time gets right to the thesis of the story on a mental health appreciate that yeah r slash no sleep the famed mental health this is basically a mental forum for how people write these they're fucking stories for sure from lowly writers to indestructible pedophiles we care at r slash no sleep i'm not joking i'll run through this for a second i know i'm not the most reliable person but i don't think i could imagine something like this hell i remember the entire lead up to what happened people were freaking out it was the end of the world while anybody knew what did they call it an unidentified object at near luminous speed that's what the media said over and over for like the day and a half we had until it hit i guess that meant it was going really fast fast enough to destroy all life on the planet anyway that was the part nobody misunderstood they said somebody had to have created this object and aimed it at us it was unlike anything natural they'd ever seen they said somebody had probably shot this thing at us billions of years ago probably aiming to wipe out the competition before it evolved aiming to wipe us out before we were anything more than barely living goo but apparently had been sent out hold on let me check my scribblings about what they said between 4.54 and 4.527 billion years ago because whoever had shot it at us hadn't taken the moon into account they couldn't have because it didn't exist then miraculously the timing was just right and it hit the moon instead i remember the noise and the flash how could i forget absolutely everyone was outside watching and listening thinking the world was about to end but it was daytime and i was like oh my god i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die it's daytime here and the moon was on the other side of the planet we only saw the edges of the blast spraying up past the horizon a sprawling cloud of flame and glowing dust erupted across the skies i stood on the street among dozens of neighbors i didn't know well i knew crazy donald homeless guy who i sat with sometimes outside wendy's he was there muttering to himself and holding a plastic bag filled with plastic bags but i don't think he knew anything was going on he was just going around asking people for change even before we knew that we were going to live for another day i like him because he and i get along in a quiet and lonely sort of way i followed him around and made sure he was safe as the crowd grew confused excited and loud scaring him radios came alive and said we should probably stay inside for the next few days we didn't need to be told twice i urged donald to move along to somewhere safe and then i hit my apartment the parties were absolutely insane what i could hear through the walls i imagine that people were amazed at being alive and since they had nowhere to go until the all clear it was party time me i kept to myself mostly see that's why i'm asking i remember all this very vividly i could have sworn it was real thing is even despite the pills i have a tough time with reality i can feel the rippling waters of dreaming while i'm awake often i can't distinguish between the cold hard lines of the real world and half-formed concepts of waking imagination i don't want to have my dosage upped again because the pills make my brain feel like cement so i pretend i'm not crazy i don't mutter to myself or attack people my thoughts are still there my faculties as my brother will calls them so i force myself to behave normally when i see something i don't understand and i use logic to control what i do i like music songs keep me grounded because they float through the air like mathematical chains the songs that i know i know by heart and i know i'm solid as long as the notes keep making sense i'm listening to man on the silver mountain right now trying to keep coherent but strategy doesn't help memories my hallucinations man no wonder he's talking to the old boy outside of wendy's dude guy sitting there begging for begging for frosties and this guy's like seeing mickey mouse walking around this guy's a nut this guy's a nut he can try he could be he could be as eloquent as he wants but this is well he has hallucinations and he has to see everything the right way and the notes have to make sense it's like you visualize it's like he gets ideas and stuff to visualize there so that's why he's asking about the moon being on fire because he's like this is probably a hallucination yeah 100 all i'm saying is that him and crazy donald you know he's just like feisty he's like yes donald He's like, "Do you see the giant purple man on top of the moon pissing on the fire yeah I think that both I uh I don't know I it's well actually let me ask you this well I you know sorry I'm going all over the place I will say this is this is freaking me out the story because I keep getting fucking like reels and I keep seeing videos of like this asteroid is meant to hit earth in the next blah blah blah blah have you seen have you seen those I see those oh yeah I see those all the time yeah that's fuck it did you know you're gonna die in eight months it's like okay I feel like every scientist just wants the world to end have you felt that at all yes it's always so like did you know that we're just like an ant did you know in the grand scheme of things you're nothing and we can blow up right now what if I do it right now all of us I think it's to me it's less of that but it's also them just being there's a there's a rock called b24 zinc 12 and it's on its way to hit earth it's not like it's not even like they're not even remotely upset by it it's like there's a shit they're always they always smirk when they're talking about this never a frown they're always it's traveling at such a rate that will blast to the earth sitting us out of orbit freezing the world destroying all life and we'll all and it'll go us off our axis and it's just kind of a magical thing of the universe I'm like I don't think that a giant rock fucking hitting us and killing all life is pretty fucking magical of the universe dude I think it's kind of a bummer no it's quite compelling I don't know I just it's just that kind of thing where I'm like can we not act remorseful at all that like all loss of life would be a fucking a huge bummer yeah it's like yeah it's always like a smiling Bill Nye kind of guy looking at the camera and they're like there's a rock on its way right now and when it gets here it's gonna blow your dome smooth off like they're so excited that something is traveling at the speed of light it's like flying directly for us your kids are gonna die you're gonna die the dog is dead your whole block is getting it's gonna bounce off the moon when it gets here that's just the universe and that's pretty sweet and that's pretty freaking cool if you ask me yeah it'll hit the core we'll all die of heat death it's like alright well we'll all die of heat death thanks I guess I'll worry about my 401k another day yeah it's all lame it's all I just I don't like any I don't like it in stories I don't like it with people it's just like like life sucks and then you die kind of thing or it's like yeah it does you're gonna die any second now you ever think of that you should think about that more it's just lame anyway is it a hallucination I asked because the media coverage of the molten moon dropped off pretty quickly over the last week I mean there's a massive cloud of glowing dust and flaming gas spread out across the sky like somebody thrust a burning spear straight through the moon because that's what happened nobody seems to care today I can't even find any mention of it all the videos and pictures are gone can't find the articles anymore it's been too cloudy here to see it myself and I don't have any windows in my basement apartment but I've ventured out a few times to look up I still see the orange glow I still see the orange glow like a smeared second sun behind the clouds and I have to wonder why the hell isn't anyone talking about this anymore has our attention span really gotten that short are we right back to the next reality television drama and celebrity gossip already a weird thing happened when I ran into my next door neighbor Dean I normally avoid him like I avoid everyone but this time was different hey Alec he said smiling at me in the hall why would anyone smile at me grubby unshaven wearing a mechadeth t-shirt I was the epitome of that guy you ignore who is fine with being ignored I would have said hello back and moved on quickly but I had a question myself this time how about that sky yeah he asked studying my face tall blonde and good looking in that annoying Abercrombie sort of way he had no reason to so much as look at me I wondered why he was even talking to me god dude fucking get a grip good fucking lord god I think very clearly it's establishing we have an unreliable narrator no I mean 100% yeah I just feel like I watch like a fucking I feel like I'm watching this is Neil deGrasse Tyson I'm watching a fucking episode of I'm watching an episode of like love on the spectrum or something I'm like get fucking get over it dude good lord like you're fine what about it I remember frowning slightly something seemed off about his interest I wasn't about to make a huge social blunder and mention the sky was on fire if I was just hallucinating the whole thing either crappy weather's blocking the view he smiled at that yes it's quite unfortunate I nodded laughed sheepishly and hurried down the stairwell I think he stood there watching me until I closed the door the more I thought about it the more I was sure that he didn't remember that the moon was on fire if I were a normal person that's the first and only thing that would be on my mind hey remember the time the moon freaking exploded yeah me too since it was last week because half the damn sky is still on fire every couple hours for several days I'd go outside but I kept missing the sight due to the cloudy winter weather from the pictures I remembered seeing the moon was a molten coin burning in between two jutting clouds almost like a fiery eye and I wanted to see it for myself if I could just see it if I could just stare at it for a time I could finally convince myself one way or the other I was becoming pretty certain that the moon would be just the same old silver dollar it had always been thing is thought I'd gotten a pretty good handle on my issues if I've just imagined the entire thing then I'm in serious mental trouble left a few messages for my brother but he hasn't called me back yet I haven't texted my younger sister Laura on the excuse that I just wanted to see how she was doing she didn't respond either no surprise though dad's probably passed out drunk right about now I might call Tracy if I get any worse although I wouldn't know what to say to her really he's probably busy taking care of dad's mess anyway I don't know I'm sure I'll get over this I just don't want to have to go to my doctor she'll let my meds in again and then I'll be a zombie I don't want to have to go to my doctor she'll let my meds in again and then I'll be a zombie you know maybe maybe sometimes maybe sometimes being a zombie is better than being convinced the moon is on fire and everyone's hiding it from you I do like this idea though of like the concept's great I'm really I'm into the story so far yeah I like the idea of this guy who can't understand that he has like these like hallucinations he understands that he's like I'm not all there but I need to have this justification it's just like it's like being unable to scratch an itch I would assume is what it's like because he's like I feel like I feel like people are making me feel crazier than I already feel by not acknowledging like this very crazy thing that happened and I can't even see it for myself whatever that's just a fun that's a fun setup yeah yeah like he might be delirious but he can't tell he can't even see the thing to know if it's an illusion or not also a lot of great little things at the end there with like the dad passed out drunk and I mean like obviously he doesn't have a very great family life which is probably also why he's like so weirded out when people are like wanting to talk to him because his family never talks to him just a lot of great little character setup stuff it's time to talk about something scary your health I know I don't go in the doctor as much as I should if I'm feeling sick I'll just lie in bed and sleep it away but that's only because I don't want to have to deal with the appointments insurance and blah blah blah blah blah 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That's right, buy one, get 20% off any quality, stylish prescription eyewear that you want on the site. Again, that's warbyparker.com/creepcast to get in on their fantastic offer today. Thank you to Warby Parker for sponsoring the show. Their link will be in the description. And we are back to the episode. Thanks for the responses. Although now I'm just more confused. Some of you say the moon isn't on fire and to go look for myself and some of you are just trolling and say the moon is on fire. God's ban you. This isn't a place to make fun of people. Some of you have asked about Will before. Yeah, he listens to me. He's the only family I have that takes me seriously at all. I think that he considers it his duty as an older brother. He takes care of Laura too, although she's got a good head on her shoulders, mostly. I don't think Will would have to do nearly as much if dad got a job or stopped drinking. Tracy's nice and all, but we're not her kids, not her responsibility. Even Will isn't really returning my calls anymore. Not after the incident I posted about last month. He got mad that I woke him up in the middle of the night for a dream I had while I was sleeping. Waking hallucinations were one thing, he said, but dreams while I was asleep were perfectly normal and I had to deal with them on my own. He didn't seem to care how traumatic or horrifying the dream was. I mean, I can't blame him. I'm sure on balance, he's done so much for me, and I've done so very little for him, but I've had a terrible sense of impending doom ever since that night. I think about the kinetic terror I felt, and I still can't shake it. The tough part for me is that my dreams seep into my real life. Like right now, I feel like I'm being watched. I'm looking up and there's a small mirror to the right of my laptop. I can't look away even as I type, or am I looking away and just believing that I'm looking at the mirror? I keep looking deeper and deeper, seeing further into the apartment behind me, and a sense of tension pulls at me. A building screamed to come that keeps rising to higher and higher intensity. I already see it. I already sense it, but I'm not consciously aware of what it is. Not yet. A grenade goes off inside me, throwing terror and adrenaline in a thousand conflicting directions within the confines of my chest and limbs. He's there. He's standing there in the shadows, watching me with hatred and intent. He sees me. He sees that I see him, and he stalks forward, approaching me from behind. But he's not there. He can't possibly be there. Why would Dean be in my apartment? I just have to sit still, breathe deep, and. Oh my god. I don't know what to do. I think I killed Dean. But I had to. I have to make sense of this, I have to figure this out. Okay, step by step. I wasn't listening to music, or I would have known that he was really there. Or was he? Is he? Is he really on the floor, bleeding from his head? So secure in the matrix of logic I usually keep myself in, I was certain he wasn't really there. I kept believing that, even as the fear surged up right behind me. He grabbed me around the neck. He was trying to drag me toward the door. That's all I could tell. He didn't say a word. I don't know how I got out of his grip, except by going limp and flopping down at a lucky moment. And then he lunged at me again. I scrambled away, pulled a lamp down, and threw it at his face. A couple bits of shattered lightbulbs stuck out from his cheek, but he kept coming, furious. He tried to tackle me, but I slipped and fell out of the way, and he smashed sideways into my table. I used his moment of disorientation to lift my printer and bring it down on his head. He fell and stopped moving. What do I do? What do I do? My condition, my pills, would make me out to be a lunatic. Would they lock me up for this? It was in my own apartment, sure, but they just say that I invited him inside. Wait. Did I? Did I ask him to come look at something? Did I then attack him? If I'm hallucinating things again, how can I know what's real? I've always hated him, hated his niceness. I always thought there was a smug arrogance behind it, even if he never showed it. I couldn't call the police, could I? But I did. I had to. This wasn't some movie. I couldn't hide the body or any such nonsense. Besides, that would just look worse. I called. The first thing the cop on the other end asked was my location. He was very insistent on knowing where I was, even before I mentioned what I'd done. Something about his energy spooked me, and I hung up before giving any identifying information. Damn it, Will, where are you? He's moving! Dean's moving! Well, I'll tell you what, you got me all wrapped up in that. That was a great performance there. That was awesome. I will say the, uh, the, uh, the way that that was written, I don't know if it was written, was so chaotically schizophrenic that that was, uh, insane. I'd like the, the sheer, like the way that it transitioned from him just talking to Dean to then all of a sudden he's like, by the way, I think I just bludgeoned him with an HP printer, you know, pretty fucking wild. Well, I mean, like the, uh, the transitions were so interesting where it starts with like, I'm looking in the mirror. Am I looking in the mirror? There's someone in here with me. And then he kills Dean. But then he doesn't know if he killed Dean. Then he calls the police and he doesn't know if the police should know anything. Um, it's, it's interesting how chaotic it's written to where you're almost confused, but you keep just enough of a through line that you still understand what's happening. There's just a bit of a roller coaster with it. It's very well done. Between this and psychosis, Matt here loves writing, uh, like crazy people I think that he, I wonder if he knows somebody that has like, I wonder if he has dealt with that in his own personal life with like a family member or something where he's been around somebody that has talked to him extensively or if he has dealt with himself because it feels so natural. Like I feel like when people tend to write crazy or, you know, people that are delusional or something, I feel like they go extremely overboard to the point where it's almost a caricature of that kind of disease or something that mental disease. But this feels like, uh, a very earnest and honest approach to how somebody would probably speak. Um, if they had that, you know, I don't think that it would just be so black and white in its approach though. Uh, though the peppering of how kind of chaotic the roller coaster has become does like it feeds itself well, you know, like, I mean it, it doesn't just totally like play it straight the whole time. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm into it so far. I think this is sick. Especially the way it's written. Thanks for all the replies. Uh, yes, Dean was alive, just unconscious. He woke up staggered to his feet and mumbled an apology. It was the weirdest thing ever. No, he didn't explain what the hell he'd been doing. He seemed confused more than anything. He did say that was really stupid of me. I'm sorry. About 20 minutes after he stumbled out through the wall, I thought I heard somebody berating him in his apartment. Now I'm more confused than ever. I don't understand what he was trying to do. Uh, it's satisfying though. Hearing someone shouted him for being an asshole and an idiot. Yeah, I know. Right. If I didn't have my own issues, I'd call the police onto myself for breaking and entering. Sometimes mental problems make you feel like an outcast. You don't get to call the police. You don't get asked for help. If there's a problem, you're the one in trouble. It's one of the many reasons I don't leave my apartment much. You guys ever feel like that? I just had the oddest experience. A girl came by Dean's girlfriend and asked if I wanted to take a walk. She wanted to apologize and explain what happened so that I wouldn't press charges. I guess she had no idea. I was terrified of interaction with the cops. She was like Dean, thin, blonde, perky, like a fashion magazine model. I hated it. I didn't know what to do with her. I was like, I don't know what to do with her. She was like, I don't know what to do with her. colors the weather cleared up immediately i could sense the molten moon and blazing veil above but i avoided looking at it it wasn't real and i wasn't going to give in to my waking dreams nice night out isn't it she said oblivious to the burning sky she walked beside me and something about that little nice night isn't it she said oblivious to the burning sky just that little sentence right there is very i don't know how to describe it i like the way that sentence is packed well i did just a few words it's just a really interesting way of like i just can't tell this guy is fucking totally batshit crazy or if everyone is just actually relieved but it does make i mean it just lends itself more to either being she is a hallucination herself or that he is hallucinating about this the the sky i can't i also kind of expect we maybe get in shutter island here you "you think like somebody is like orchestrating this to test him like in that way well like like he may be inside of like a facility or something oh interesting yeah i see what you're saying not hence why someone would come in there get hit they're like sorry and then a woman walks around with him afterwards kind of thing not necessarily a truman show but something along those lines like an orchestrated like shutter island where he realizes that he's a patient the whole time right right at the he thinks he's a detective yeah well that i mean spoilers but at the end you at the end at the end he doesn't realize it though does he he like uh or i guess he does or maybe he does i can't remember yeah well he comes to at the end which again spoilers he comes to the realization that he's not a detective that he's one of the patients and the whole thing was the police were trying to determine if he could come to terms with the uh the murder so that um he wouldn't have to be lobotomized um but then at the ending he lies well he it's presented that he doesn't know he's still oblivious doesn't know what's going on so they come to lobotomize him but right before he goes he says the line back to the doctor or the detective that's like um um what do you think's worse living with it or letting go or whatever implying that he does know and he did come out of the illusion but the reality of living with what happened is worse than being lobotomized so he's letting them do it to him yeah yeah he'd rather just fucking be mentally dead he'd rather just fucking be mentally dead he'd rather just fucking be mentally dead he'd rather just be vegetative than uh what a girl i haven't seen that movie forever i thought you don't fucking actor i love that's in that movie is the guy who plays rorschach in uh watchmen oh yeah yeah the fuck is his name oh yeah jackie earl haley yeah he's he's he's been in a lot of great movies city will cry out save us and i will whisper no i love i love i love rorschach such a good character i'm not trapped in here with you which you alan moore actually wrote that character to be like a parody of like right-wing guys that he hated because his whole thing was like um he was like oh he's so committed to like what used to be that he's a fool right that was the idea but he incidentally made rorschach the only character in the story that has principles and doesn't like sacrifice them at any point because every other character like has beliefs and stuff but they're like well i don't know i'm not trapped in here with you because he's a fool right that was i don't know maybe ozymandias is right or they're like well you know maybe we do lie to let this go on but except rorschach he's the only one who lives by principles and then dies by them um so he accidentally made like a valiant character that was supposed to be a joke so he hates the way people talk about rorschach which i think is funny because rorschach's like the best part of that movie and the and the comic but right she walked beside me as we circled the neighborhood look i'll be honest with you dean's kind of a controlling asshole he's never been violent before but i think he got the idea that something's going on between you and me what i laughed last note rising awkwardly high i don't think that we've even spoken no we haven't but i saw you in the hall last week and i mentioned that i used to date dirty grunge types you know metal i suddenly felt very warm i'm sure my face was red to someone who saw a silver moonlight instead of orange oh oh see that those are that and the last one oblivious of the burning sky those are great sentences i love that you did yep he's not really my type i'm crazy right since we both look like we belong in old navy ad you said it not me did i actually just make a joke i don't think i'd ever gotten this many seconds into a conversation with a pretty girl and she actually laughed out loud i know i know when i dress and act like this i know what i'm doing call an experiment if we're being honest i had to get away from the drugs i love me some megadeth and dio but the scene wait what those are my two favorite bands right now all right he's fucking hallucinating no no no fucking way hallucinating bro yeah she blinked really i don't think anyone our age liked that classic stuff still okay i did come on i opened my jacket and showed her my t-shirt no freaking way well it's nice to meet you she held out her hand alec i said shake it out shaking her hand and marveling at my own ability to actually hold a human conversation i didn't feel numb or terrified i just felt normal the fact that she reminded me of my sister made it easier to deal with her short for alexander alexander i'm ashley she looked up at the sky for a moment i did not follow her gaze beautiful night out still didn't look i didn't want to face the flaming hallucination that was so insistently trying to ruin my first real connection with someone else in a long time how about this she continued after a moment finally looking back at me i'm done with dean either way such an asshole but i honestly believe it's a one-time thing from him you don't press charges i'll go on a date with you bro delusion city yeah the moon is actually fucking blown up this is his actual hallucination i mean yeah he's yeah it's gonna end they're all just dead the moon did explode um this is his purgatory but i think uh yeah this is definitely a hallucination dean may be a real guy but i think everything beyond that's not real i mean he described that this girl looks exactly like a female version of dean right uh that or and she reminds him of his sister yeah yeah that part finally broke my scant coolness and made me clam up i'd seen the moment enough times on television that i knew to force myself to say one word sure i think she mistook my terseness for aloof confidence genuine and warm smile crossed her face and then she took my cell phone and put her number in it 10 minutes later back in my apartment and more shocked than when i thought i'd kill dean now here's the part where i need some help from you guys i know i'm posting a ton tonight and i'm sorry i just it's so hard to tell what's real i keep thinking back on it and obsessing over our little walk i can't help feeling she was trying to get me to look at the sky little details like her choice to talk to me outside and her long pauses to look over at the moon and dean had been trying to drag me to the door had her whole thing had our whole conversation been fake am i just being paranoid how would they even know about my hallucination oh god what if it's a cruel trick what if they read my post and are messing with me what do you guys think am i just psyching myself out for no reason i hate this so much i hate my brain i i hate my affliction i hate myself why can't i just be normal thanks for the support i am kind of freaking out and you guys make me feel much better still a ton of trolls here though please shut up although i don't agree with the popular sentiment here that going out and looking at the moon to face my fear will help i'm not going to do that ignoring my hallucinations has always worked for me hold on one second another knock at the door what the hell i just got a visit from crazy donald guess what though he's fine he seems lucid he looked at me with a clear and direct gaze that i've never seen from him before he knew my name too i i opened the door and he stared at me for a moment before saying alec you're all right yeah i replied confused donald are you like actually there he nodded i'm feeling better father bruce stop shouting at me tapped his head i think he's finally forgiven me after all these years father bruce though donald smiled and nodded my mother stopped scolding me too i'm feeling good man and i don't know anyone else i stared at him no family he shook his head somewhere the joy last i could remember before i uh before the screaming got so loud i couldn't think when was that i don't know man black savage's the last big thing i can remember uh glenn hughes was on vocals that time i knew my metal trivia their 1986 tour that they played detroit that year you've been out of it for 30 years 30 years we use it now 2014 it's october 2014. damn can i look in the mirror sure he's in the bathroom crying right now i know how to handle this less than i knew how to handle talking to ashley i don't know how to handle talking to ashley i don't know how to handle talking to him i've always sort of gotten along with crazy donald well just donald now i suppose but i never suspected that he was aware of me through the fog of his mania I can't just kick him out, either. Do I have to let him live here? The thought of someone in my space, even if it's just for a bit, makes me nervous. This has been one hell of a night. I don't think I can take much more emotional stress. I'm already fragile in the best of circumstances, but tonight's been a trip. What do you guys suggest? How should I handle this? I think it's very telling that his only interest is metal, and everyone he interacts with just talks about metal. Yeah, yep. I didn't say anything to him. I didn't even mention it to him. I'm terrified beyond all logic right now. I stood outside the door and tried to calm him down, the way some of you suggested, and do you know what he said as he cried? It's the damn burning moon. I'd rather go back to the screaming than find out I've lost so much of my life. I never told him about the molten moon. He said it unprompted, and I nearly had a panic attack. It wasn't just my imagination, or we'd had the same hallucination. Donald, do you remember having bad dreams recently? He immediately quieted. I've always had bad dreams. My whole life has been a bad dream. I'm serious, Donald. In the last month, have you had any particularly horrible nightmares? He breathed for a time, in between pathetic sobs, and I heard him move, a little on the bathroom floor. Yeah. Even with Father Abruzzo shouting at me and my mother hurting me, I saw him standing there on the outside trying to get in. Who? Him. He said cryptically. The sleeper. The dreamer on high. He's on the outside looking in. He's always looking in. I felt a terrible chill at those words. I didn't have a name for the shadow of impending doom I'd felt ever since that night, but I did have a feeling. The sensation of being watched. It felt like Dean's presence had felt, like someone was standing in the shadows at the back of the room and watching me with fury and hunger. Don, what did you mean when you said it was the moon? I looked, man. I looked up at it, and it looked down into me. Oh. Oh. Bro. Ooh. That was all he would say. I left him to his sobbing, figuring I could get more out of him after his first good night's sleep in 30 years. I left him a blanket, too, and now I'm left with a terrible foreboding. There's a small pool of blood on my floor, and nobody seems to share my hallucination that the moon is on fire except another crazy person. Still, I called my brother one last time, Will. I said to his voicemail. Don't look at the moon. I don't know if you've looked, but don't. It's important. I don't know what else to do. How can I know? How does anyone know what's real? If something's happening, who would I even turn to? If it's not, how do I shake this waking nightmare? And why do so many of you keep insisting I go outside and look at the moon? I'm not finding this funny, I have a text from Ashley. She wants to go on our date now, which is way sooner than I expected, I guess. But who knows? I gotta go, but I'll be back with more updates when I can manage. Wish me luck, guys. I'm not going to let this get to me. I'm not going to let my issues get in the way of my life. Not this time. End of part one. Man, what? What a first part, dude. I really like the ending, too, because, yeah, I can't. I think you're right. It's almost like, something is like predatory and it wants him to look up and see it. Yeah. You know, and now the only other person that is making any sense is also a man who has been basically insane. So it's like, has their psychosis or has their mental blockage basically stopped the effects of whatever this entity is that's looking down? You know what I mean? I think the idea is everything is trying to get him to look at it, but then that begs the question, like, okay, did something actually happen to the moon? Then was he right about, you know, there was a comet coming and then everyone quit talking about it. Like it basically took over everyone who was outside and now they're trying to convince him very similar to the psychosis, right? It also reminds me a lot of, did you ever watch? I don't think we did a creep TV video about it, but did you ever watch local 58? No, I feel like you've told me about it though. We should do a creepy thing on local 58. It's like the first analog whore. Um, at least in like the modern, cause that was the one that you showed me. That was like a dashboard cam, right? The guy drug, there's one woods. Is it that one or no? There's one episode of local 58 called, um, you're on the fastest available route, which is from a dash cam perspective. Uh, but I mean, there's a bunch of different entries. Most of them are like PSAs, like TV, uh, cable network programs. Um, hence the analog and analog core. But I mean, Mark, the marble Hornets was arguably the first, but local 58 was the one that made the framework. No, like the Mandela catalog and stuff like that came off of. So I think that this is very similar to that. Cause there's a whole thing in local 58 where something's happening to the moon and all the PSAs are instructing everyone to come outside and to look up. Um, and in that, in local 58, there's an entity within the moon. Like the, there's actually a giant egg that some creatures bursting out of, um, which actually, I feel like that happens in monument mythos to no monument mythos. It's the earth. The earth was an egg for the giant George Washington serpent, which is another story. But yeah, I like this idea of like the moon being some great entity that there's something happening with it. It's very, as you would say, Lovecraftian. So I think it's cool. It is cool. I was going to say the, uh, just such a great hooking. I'm like, I'm really excited to get into part two here. Very rarely does these, I'm curious to see because very rarely do we at the end of these part ones, the amount of times that we've been like, this is really cool. And then it divulges into something kind of weird. I'm curious to see, does it keep, does it keep us intrigued? Does it keep us hooked throughout this next two parts? Cause I think that it's, it's three parts, right? Um, or is it just two parts? Okay. It's three. Yeah. I, I think we can just jump in. Yep. Part two, as I was getting ready, I saw some of the replies. Many of you advise that I should secretly record my date if I could. And well, I gave into the paranoia for the first time in my life. I'm glad I did. It was already getting late by the time I managed to shave, shower and fix my hair up the best I knew how she drove. And I tried to make small talk to be honest. I had no idea what I was doing. She didn't seem to mind my awkwardness. She took us to a nearby bar that she said was a favorite of hers. I don't drink ever. My doctor had mentioned once that alcohol might interfere with antipsychotic medications. And I've been fearful ever since. Still, I was determined not to let my issues ruin my life. I ordered a beer and pretended that it was something I did all the time. I wasn't sure if she noticed my shaking hands, but I clenched my fingers together and put on a calm face. I said stuff and she laughed. I didn't get it. Nobody had ever thought my sarcastic and bitter comments were funny before. I'd always just been that weird guy on the fringe. Why was this girl even talking to me? It just didn't make sense. That's when your comments started getting to me. I just couldn't believe that I was interesting or attractive to anyone. So I left my phone at the bar, set it to record audio, and I said I was going to the bathroom. I did stay in there quite a bit longer, than I wanted to, but I was afraid to come back out. What if she noticed that I'd set my phone to record? What if. I shook my head, messed with my hair a little in the mirror, and then finally went back out. Everything seemed normal. She sat at the chair, checking her phone. I used that opportunity to pick up my phone and pretend to do the same. Oh, a voicemail. One second. Instead, I actually listened to the recording. I heard myself making a small excuse and walking away. A moment later, I heard her ask someone. How are you liking the weather? A voice I recognized as the bartenders followed. It's fine. Their reactions were odd. It sounded as if there was some sort of hidden meaning to the exchange, but that the two were unsure of one another. I looked over and noticed the bartender watching me. I hurriedly glanced away. The recording wasn't much, but something about it felt off. I couldn't shake the feeling that something was very wrong, but I was on a date, and I was still determined not to let my paranoia get the best of me. Even as I began to put the phone down, the last of the recording captured one more muttered sentence. He's not gonna look, dammit. Had I really just heard that? Was my mind playing tricks on me again? Feeling heady, I lowered the phone. Everything alright? Yeah, I just forgot about something I have to give back to a friend. I lied. I put on a happy face and pretended like I hadn't heard anything. And had I really? I could feel ripples in my awareness, as if I was half dreaming, but I knew that I was awake. It was a familiar and typically disconcerting sensation, and I hated that it was happening now of all times. Saying that I needed some air for a second, I stepped outside. Thankful that nobody was out front smoking at the moment, I clutched my head and tried to breathe in some scents. The sidewalk beneath my feet still seemed cast and burnt orange. God, why did I have to be like this? Why did I have to suspect everything? Why did I have to see and hear things that weren't there? Feeling a rather strong bout of paranoia, an idea occurred to me. Going back inside, I sat down and put on a neutral face. I just looked at the moon. It's gorgeous tonight. She hesitated in the middle of a sip of her drink and lowered it slowly. She watched me intently, her eyes and expression carefully balanced. Is it now? It had the distinct impression that she wasn't sure whether to believe me. Why would that matter if I was just talking about the moon? What's it like? I imagined I heard a subtext of interrogation beneath her nonchalant question. I hadn't thought the idea through this far, but what if everything was fine? I'd sound like a weird asshole if I said what I really knew was up here. Full. Very, like, bright silver. She locked gazes with me for a very long moment, but I had years of practice faking that I was fine. Long last, she sighed. I thought you'd never look. A blast of panic tore through me, but my practiced fake calm kept me in place. I wanted to scream, "What did you just say?" Instead, I nodded, gave a weak laugh, and picked up my drink. So, what now? I guess we wait, she replied, leaning against the bar. It's tough, you know. Can't be certain about anyone these days. This is so well done because- Fuck this, my fist, her jaw. Me dead-spring down her arm. I'd be like- You love him, woman. I guess we just wait, "BOOM!" Right to her fucking, right to her temple. "BOOM!" I'm out, I'm out. Dude, this story is so well done because it, on the surface, it's just like, oh, well, he figured them out. He figured out they wanted to look, so he lied. And they're like, "Oh, well, you did it. Now you're a part of the hive mind." But he's been established as so unreliable and hallucinating so much, this conversation may not even be happening. They may not even be in a bar. They might be, but she's not talking about this, or this is a completely innocuous conversation that he's applying to. He is so unreliable that there are so many layers as to what could be going on here. And if that thing that Donald said, the shadow man or whatever, is real and messing with his mind, this could all be his orchestration, right? He could be dreaming. Yeah, I mean, it's continuously throwing us off its trail. It's continuously, like, leading us down roads. Like, you're like, "Okay, I think I get it." "Oh, nope, no, I don't." It's just, I love the constant misdirection. But also, this whole creepy, like, hive mind, or like, kind of gives me that vibe of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where it's like, all these plant people are trying to, like. Scope out all of the humans, you know? Yeah. So, I love that. Well, again, it's like his other story, Psychosis, where throughout most of the story, you think that he's just paranoid. But then the last sentence, it's like, "Oh, no, there was a conspiracy to try to get him to come out." I'm nervous for our main character, though. I will say that. Nervous for the main character, because that boy is down so bad that I think he might even dip into some moon pussy at some point. You gotta watch out for that boy. Yeah, well, I mean, if anyone would resist, it would be him, because he is paranoid enough. Livin' La Vida Loca. YOLO. YOLO. That's what he says before he dives in. Okay, from the way you just said that, I now have to picture that it's Nick. No, no, no. We have to give the man a bit more respect than that. It was specifically the voice, like, "YOLO," like that. YOLO. She's just a little quirky. She just wants me to look at the moon eye. It's okay. The whole, "It's tough, you know. Can't be certain about anyone these days." I'd be like, "Mm-hmm." I'm telling you, man, I would, my fucking, my fist, her jaw, teeth dusted. It's a sippy queen. Yeah, but I'd say, "What's that?" She'd look over barely. As soon as she looks back, "Boom!" I nodded again. It was a long gulp of beer, trying to understand what was happening. I couldn't be hallucinating this entire conversation, could I? And I couldn't ask questions without exposing the fact that I was what? That I was myself? That I hadn't actually looked at the moon? The bartender came over and slid me another drink as I nervously finished mine. I went to offer him some cash, but he shook his head. I couldn't help but overhear. I wasn't sure, but I suspected. Now I know. First one's on me. Welcome to the club. Here's one for the lady, too. Slid a second drink over. Ashley smiled at him. Thanks. My God. God, get me out. Actually, I'm fucking swallowing a shotgun barrel that night. I'm telling you that right now. I can tell you that. You're going to see my, if I wasn't so fat, I'd be fucking swinging. Yeah, that's our, that's our triumph. That is my triumph. That's our triumphant hero's ending. Yeah. Exactly. That's my Shutter Island ending. Not a lobotomy. It's me swallowing a shotgun barrel. So intense. Like a, like a fucking 12 inch sub. Nope. Oh, it's so graphic. But like the Looney Tunes cartoon where their jaws get really wide. It's like gold. Yeah. I look like, I look like, I look like Scooby eating a fucking footlong sub. That's what I'm gonna look like chewing down that shotgun barrel tonight. Absolutely. Like zoinks scoops. I don't know what you're talking about. your throat that's no joke and scooby when you pull the trigger you're gonna you're gonna find that life is really whack that's a fact oh i know you'll catch that villain oh and then the remake it's like what's your scooby-doo coming after you gotta gotta i don't know i'm not as good this as you are whatever the equivalent would be for what's wow real peak creativity we have here i'm an artist i'm an artist in my zone over here i'll try there's nothing that rhymes that fits those two concepts together in that opening um you i froze did she mean the moon there was no helping it it only took a moment she knew i was purposefully avoiding looking she backed away a step you lied she looked across the street at the smokers and i guess that she was judging whether she could trust them she half shouted something but then changed her mind mid-sentence if there were other people in the know with whatever she was doing was it possible that she didn't know who they were you she couldn't scream for help in that regard so instead she shouted something much worse help there's creepy attacking me what i screamed back it was my worst nightmare to have my awkward interactions misinterpreted as threatening but but wait that wasn't what was happening here no no no i'm not immediately the three guys across the street frowned assessed her fear and then charged in my direction i ran but they were faster than me and one took me down from the other side of the street from behind with wide, gripping arms. I hit the sidewalk roughly, barely keeping my face from slamming into concrete, and they rolled me over. I remember holding up my arms, feebly trying to keep the punches from landing somewhere critical, but one did manage to leave a horrible pain in my eye socket. I was certain I'd have a black eye if they didn't just kill me. Someone tore them off, shouting at the top of his lungs. Pushing and shoving them away, he kneeled next to me and helped me sit up. I'm not proud of it, but I did cry. There was blood and bruising all over me, and my date had turned horrible in all the ways I feared most. What if I'd really attacked her? I couldn't believe anything. Not with alcohol messing with my head. Like a Christ! Came the savior voice from above. What the hell's going on? Will! I couldn't believe it. He'd actually come. I'm really confused, and she made me drink, but. Something's going on. He sighed and went to lift his head, but I covered his face with my hand. Don't look, Will. This isn't a joke. Remember how you said I had three promises I could ask you, as a brother? Yeah. Well, I've got two left, and I want to use one for this. I can't explain why, but because it would sound crazy even for me. If it's that important to you, fine. It'd probably hurt to look at anyway, since it's still burning so brightly. It's. It's what? I asked, stunned out of my pained daze. The moon's on fire? Of course it is. Did you somehow miss all this craziness? Oh. Uh-uh. Interesting. I couldn't talk anymore after that. I was too overcome by relief, as if I'd been plucked right out of a nightmare and saved. The moon was on fire, at least in the memories of myself, Donald, my brother, Will. It wasn't just me. As long as it wasn't just me, I was happy. But it had to be. I'd have to show him, though. Online. I had to show him how all the articles, videos, and pictures had been scrubbed. There wasn't a trace online. He'd met Crazy Donald once before, too, and it shocked him to see the old man lucid and calm. Well, mostly lucid and calm. He still sat in the corner, stunned by the loss of thirty years of his life. And now I'm trying to figure out what to do next. My date went horribly, but I'm not convinced that something isn't really going on. Guys, is anyone acting strange? Strangely around you? Sorry for the delay in posting again, but I gather a bunch of you are feeling the same way. These people don't seem to know each other, but they're starting to talk and figure out who's who. I keep feeling like I'm being stared at in the grocery store, which is weird, because normally I feel invisible. Will is staying for the time being. He's concerned for a lot of reasons, but mainly I think he wants to make sure I'm okay. Donald is sleeping on our couch. And we've been keeping mostly to ourselves for the past few days. Every time we go out, conversations with other people feel strange and suspicious. Like everyone suspects everyone else of either being in on it or not in on it. Nobody knows for sure. But what is it? What's going on out there? Donald keeps having dreams about a hateful presence watching us from a great distance. I can't help but think back on what Ashley said. Isn't he beautiful? Who? Who did she mean? Did that object that hit the moon bring something terrible to our doorstep? What would have happened to us if it had landed here instead? We thought we'd been saved, but were we really safe at all? All of these thoughts push the boundaries of the logic I usually use to keep myself sane. Will isn't talking much about this, but I can tell he's worried. He knows something's going on, but nobody can say for sure. He did mention that he thinks ideas can be very powerful. The right kind of rumor could spread all over, making people fear each other. Maybe that was what we were feeling when we went out. People afraid of each other. Suspicion of each other on the basis of rumor, not on the basis of some spreading secret agenda. Funny thing is, whatever's going on, it isn't affecting life as usual. I still see people driving and crying. Going to work. People are still shopping at the grocery store. I've been watching horror movies for ideas, which is usually ill-advised given my condition. But it feels like research, and I've never seen anything like this. These people aren't crazy. They're not fanatics, and they're not mind-controlled. They're something else entirely. They're completely themselves, but hold on. It seems like something's going on outside. Yeah, again, I really like the structure of this. It feels like there's a bit more direction towards the idea that something is happening with the moon. It's not all like a Shutter Island, like I said earlier, especially with his brother. We probably can't really show it the way that we usually edit our episodes. But the way that these sections are written up, it does feel like there's a passage of time, like there's a break in the page. So it does feel like he's coming into these forums after an unknown amount of time, too, which is kind of interesting. Yeah. I think it's kind of interesting. through the cracks like we always do okay stop at the moon i had a priest and a bitter old woman screaming in my head for 30 years i looked up for 30 seconds and it all went away there's a whispering in my brain that pushes back against the screaming in between i'm free okay so again this you will think oh well maybe the moon stuff's real and this is actually happening but then a sentence like that will happen that sounds like donald is just reaffirming everything he wants to hear then you're like well maybe he is crazy and all this is you know well i can't tell if it's that one collective illusion the way that our protagonist looked up at the moon and he sees the clouds i'm like literally wondering if that's like a fit like an actual manifestation of like a cloudy fogged like yeah like basically like mental state to where when he looked up at it it was able to pierce through and like open him up but it wasn't able to like grip him right away you know yeah so it just opened his psyche but it didn't uh you know it didn't you're talking about donald yes correct but but it's the same thing with will where i'm wondering if he looks up would he have the same effect i don't know yeah um it's interesting how like donald didn't immediately become one of like the hive mind or whatever but he is like the voices that were in his head are now contending with a new voice that came into his head right will took a moment away from peering at our building to stare him down then how do we know you're not one of them that the moon didn't change you i hadn't thought of that why hadn't i thought of that i guess you don't know but i've got nowhere to go i'm sorry he turned and shouted towards the building they're over here oh you dick uh yep yep yep so donald what that's why he was okay he was a uh in the uh so i did grab him sleeper agent not sleeper agent just a spy i guess yeah that's kind of funny will's like will's like wait a minute wouldn't that make you one of them and donald's like that's an excellent point here they are well cover blown i remember screaming something in anger but will punched him quickly knocking him senseless it didn't matter the mob had heard they came storming out of the building in a flash they'll find us bill breeze grabbing my arm we ran again diving between bushes climbing fences and slinking through backyards did did you hurt that girl no i didn't hurt anyone he said nothing further his expression focused we seem to be making a large circle and after two hours of exhausting making we found his car i climbed into the passenger seat with a sigh cloud cover it come and hid in the moon and i felt strangely more secure for it we're going to make sure laura's all right dad and tracy too we're in a coffee shop right now i thought to bring my laptop when we ran and i'm glad i did it's our only lifeline to the world at large news pages forums comics they're all going on as normal how much the world's affected do the affected people even know something is different people in the coffee shop here aren't looking around suspiciously do they have any idea what's going on have they narrowly avoided looking at the moon somehow it has been rather cloudy or is all this going on in my head how do you guys cope with feelings like this i i just can't trust myself the tone of the conversation on this forum has definitely changed i think they're reading our post and changing their behavior accordingly if you're not affected don't trust me i'm not going to trust you i'm not going to trust you trust anybody it's not just you you're not crazy i made it home dad's passed out drunk and tracy's making some coffee will is talking to them quietly in the other room i wish i could hear what they were saying i have this strange feeling that will might be making the case to lock me up if most of this is in my head i must look totally insane to him or what if he's been compromised what if he's already looked at the moon oh god guys i don't know what to do i panicked i've only got like 30 in cash on me and i ran i ran away i took my stuff and i bolted i couldn't risk getting locked up i've been hiding out in an abandoned house down the street for two days and using the neighbor's unprotected wireless i used to listen to music with the kid who lived here he's gone but the house is still in good shape i don't think anybody will be looking for me indoors this will work it has to work i'll figure out how to live you is his brother actually up to something or is this all just his paranoia that's forcing him into a more complicated situation well what i like about it is that it's all logical from the standpoint of somebody who believes in this like it would make sense he's just like i need to flee i feel like they're they're going to lock me up i mean it sounds ridiculous but i'm like i understand why it doesn't feel like it's just random or that he's just absolutely out of his mind but you kind of like at the same time he could be out of his mind or like i don't know it's it's just uh it's it's it's a lot of fun all right yeah awesome yeah other people were using this house as a hideout i'm crammed in a basement closet and i've been here for hours they're weird cultish in a way they're all dressed in plain brown clothes that look like someone's piss poor attempt to be inconspicuous to the point that it's blatantly obvious they're not normal they talk funny too but they seem just as wary of what's going on i saw them peering out windows and hiding when a car drove by crap those people found me somehow like they knew where i was hiding but that was two weeks ago they keep to themselves and i still find them very strange but they're trying to figure out what's going on too i'm still not sure this isn't all just in my head i've been trying to get a read on these people seem like foreigners but they speak perfect english if they're a cult i can't figure out what they're called they seem to be worried about another half of their groups got changed by the moon i'm almost out of pills i'm nervous and i feel surreal all the time i have a strong feeling i'm hallucinating these people entirely i sneak out and get food at night first i used cash but i didn't like the suspicious looks i got from the people at the store how much of this world is affected now it seems like society is going on just fine without me and i'm the crazy donald on the fringes am i standing around muttering to myself on a corner somewhere maybe not but i'm still living in a basement and hallucinating a bunch of brown clothed strangers it's getting cold too now that it's november i notice people replying less and less on here i've got to steal food oh god oh god i don't understand i can't believe it i don't want to believe it they found me a dozen men and women and my dad tracy and laura found me they stood outside the house and shouted for me to come out come on out son my dad yelled his face a little red from drinking i peered out the window behind me brown clothed people prepared to fight with makeshift weapons i thought it hilarious that my hallucinations were preparing like they could do anything look tracy yelled we know you're scared because of what you did to that poor girl don't worry we convinced her not to press charges come on out and everything will be fine what were they waiting for why didn't they just storm the house they had more than enough people and the molten moon cast everything outside in lurid orange making me terrified of even touching the light streaming in the window outside they muttered among themselves and then laura took a turn alec we're all really worried about you you need to come out on your own free will it'll show us you're not violent don't do it voice said beside me turned and looked will yeah we're not going out for a anything like in rotten hell i stared where did you get here what he asked frowning i've been here the whole time hiding out with you we're not going to get caught and get turned into one of them was i losing my mind or had he just snuck in the back and said all this to confuse me how could i have forgotten that he was here the whole time i i wished i had time to go back and read what i written down had i mentioned will at all recently well hell with it my dad said i'm not going to go back i'm going to go back to my dad yelled we don't have time for cat and mouse games anymore we need to get ready for his coming come outside right now no shouted back he lifted a gun not at me but tracy she shouted next alec will come out you're gonna start paying the price for resisting don't do it will told me gruffly i'm gonna count to three boy my dad yelled three two one i didn't move the gunshot rang out with a surprising auditory pitch and i felt my awareness go numb had he really just tracy fell to the ground bleeding from the side of her head he lifted the gun and pointed it at laura you understand i'm gonna count to three i stared horrified beside me will was crying behind me the strange brown clothed people had used the opportunity to slip out the back door and escape if they'd existed at all will stood no i insisted trying to hold him but he tore free and moved for the front door don't do it he yelled going out with his hands up don't kill her my dad smiled that's one alec come out now will face the house his expression resigned come on alec we don't have a choice he was right in a way i had no money no allies no idea what was really going on hesitantly i stepped outside will grinned and the dozen men and women snatched me but he didn't look at the moon he didn't look He didn't need to. He'd already been changed. I'd been tricked. I'd been tricked because I was easy and vulnerable. They held my head and forced me to stare up, and some even held my eyelids. As I watched, the blazing cloud of fire around the molten moon seemed to condense, swirl, and disappear into me, leaving behind a silver crescent. They let me go after 30 seconds because they didn't need to hold me anymore. I was myself still, but no longer. It was like having access to another room in my mind. In one room, it was me. In the other, I was also me. But a me that eagerly awaited the coming of the Dreamer on high. I hated the fact that some people did not believe in him, and I wanted to seek them out and make them see. They had to see his glory. They all had to see his glory. But a temple of self remained within. They didn't know. Slightest resistance kept the believer in me from mentioning that I was out of pills. I was utterly his for a week or two. But somewhere around the first or second of December, lack of pills began setting in. I write this to you now, friends, because we are all on this forum for a reason. We've all got our issues, and those issues can free us. I write to you now, completely free. And they don't know. They don't know that I'm myself once more. There's talk of his coming in one more cycle of the moon, which I think means something big is happening in the next month. December 2014 is not going to be a good month for humanity, but I'm going to do my best to get close to whatever is going to happen. I'm going to make sure it crashes and burns. If you're out there, and you're still reading any of this, you have to do the same. Don't let them know. You know. They started out with deception, and they were few, but they're not afraid to be violent now. If anyone else has left, lay low and wait for the right moment. I'll write again when I can. End of part two. I really love this because it feels like it's going into like this cheesy cult-like world, but really, I'm almost reading it like he ran out of medicine and he's completely insane. And he's like, like his mind finally like giving in. Is him just completely losing all control that he wants had and now he's just completely gone into a psychosis or do you believe that there that the it's this is all real lean more towards the psychosis thing because of all the conversations about metal and his brother coming in there to trick him and walking out and stuff and like him being so unsure of himself and the people in the brown suits. I feel like this goes more towards there's a psychosis element at play or all of this is weird and he just can't trust himself, which is why. It took him so long to get to it right the conclusion he's at now. I'm not sure. Well part three then final part part three. I do. I do think it's interesting that I'm not sure. I really appreciate the way it's written. I was even going to make a comment like well, it is kind of lame that you know, the the dreamer, you know, the dreamer man or whatever was mentioned at the game, but hasn't come up since but no there is at the end. That's the first thing he saw when he looked at the moon. So that makes sense. Yeah, I really love this story so far. I think it's well done. I also want to point out that at the end of part two, the top comment is someone who simply said some of Hitler's men used to wear plain brown clothes. Jesus. So it's this Reddit user like maybe that's the SS. Good God. Maybe the people maybe the people trying to hide from the moon are part of the secret police. Is that what people said? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Random Redditor. Good God. Dude, any of these no sleep stories you read through the comments, you'll get you'll get some gems like like here's one. Might I recommend some shotguns? Jesus Christ. Maybe maybe perchance recommend you shotgun. Some shotgun mayhaps, madam. Here's another. Did you receive my email? Contact me ASAP. We need to figure this out. Is that just role playing shit? Yeah, it's like role play, but it's so did you see my email? So anyway, anyway, part three, part three, I never knew how hard it would be to set up a resistance movement. You can't trust anyone at all. I wish I had more time to watch spy movies. We had to come up with tactics on our own. tactics on our own, especially because we didn't have the same tests that the changed had. Eight is four. They could force someone to look up at the moon and then assume that person had become theirs. They didn't know that they could be wrong and that those of us with mental issues were instead made whole by the conflicting energies in our skulls. But rumors were beginning to circulate to that effect. And for us, even if a person was free and sound of mind, that didn't mean they wouldn't be. defect out of self-interest like Donald had. I resented him at first, but he taught me a valuable lesson. I've never met my co-conspirators. We can't meet. I can't be sure they're on my side and they can't be sure I'm on their side. I don't even know how many of us there are. All I know is that we've been passing messages through ridiculously elaborate methods or anonymously online and I'm getting some sense of what's happening in the world at large. That's the weird part. Life is going on as normal. Farmers are farming, cab drivers are driving, office employees are lounging around talking and taking smoke breaks every hour. The only difference is that any talk of religion has been replaced by praises of the dreamer on high and the world lies excited for the coming event. Some believe it will be a rapture. Some believe the dreamer will simply come in person and rule over us for all time. Me? I'm using my newfound clarity. Solid sense of reality to work my way up the rings of trust. I feel smart and capable in a way I've never been. Is this what normal people feel like all the time? I understand now that individual motivations have not changed. Will still thinks he's helping me in his own way. He thought tricking me out of the house and forcing me to accept him was saving me from the life of a homeless and mentally deficient outcast. He wasn't wrong, I suppose, continues to pursue. Relationships with higher-ups and he continues to try to get us deeper in and trusted more. We're going to be his prime disciples. Will says often, excited and determined. Brother, I always said I'd take care of you. You and Laura and dad too. We're going to be at the top of the food chain when the new order comes. We'll be taken care of. I would nod and smile but secretly think, tell that to our stepmom. Minutes or hours. It's funny that we all started out paranoid and suspicious of the changed and now the changed are paranoid and suspicious of us. Or is it sad rather than funny? The free human race is now the fringe. They had a funeral and buried Tracy in the cemetery and everything. Dad stayed sober for two whole days and cried publicly at the reception. You killed her, you psychopath, I remember thinking to myself. But he didn't feel guilty about it, since it had to be done. Son, the doublethink that change engenders brings hypocrisy. You want what you want for your own life, but service to the dreamer on high takes precedent over all your desires, no matter how strong. That's why I know that I can't trust anyone, not even my own family. They wouldn't hesitate to murder me and pass her by would cheer the silencing of another heretic. That's the crazy thing. I remember people acting this way before. This isn't true. This isn't new to humanity. Suspected heretics are the new second class citizens, the new victims of the witch hunt. Different race, different ideology, different religion. Now it's down to simply having a different mind. It's insane how scared they are of anyone who might not share their fanaticism. I gotta look at what their plan is. Yellow is blue. I understand now why their plan will actually work. They have, among them, members of the cult that I thought I'd imagined. They're called brownshirts now, because of their distinctively plain manner of dress, and they're among the top priests of the order. They've got abilities that I can't explain. They can sense electromagnetic waves of all sorts, and they hate computers and robotics of any kind. I don't know who they are, but I get the strangest sense that they're not human. They look completely human. They can breathe and walk around, but the way they talk and move and peer at things is just wrong, somehow. Like somebody who never learned to be a person. Which is unfortunate, because I need to get into contact with at least one of them. If anyone out there knows a brown shirt that hasn't been changed, I need to meet them. Leave a note at location yellow in eight minutes from the time of this post. Okay, so. I. This is losing me. pretty quick. Um, i don't know if you feel differently but it's suddenly becoming like a spy action thing is not nearly as interesting to me well that's why i'm under the as he's just crazy well that's why i'm like legitimately under the belief that he is insane and this is what his belief is like well that would make sense it's so it's so fantastical he's having this these he's like playing this whole thing of like oh yeah i'm pretending whatever to me it seems like almost like in the reality of the situation i'm deciphering so far is that his family went to help him got him out of probably some fucking homeless shack or whatever you know and he is the brown shirts are just other junkies yeah or whatever whatever it is but i i'm under the interpretation that he is like just i mean he's gone i mean he's like mentally gone is is kind of where i'm at too but i don't know i mean i i that's what i'm hoping but i i can't i i've been under the illusion now that or i'm like under the um assumption now that he's uh just completely mentally gone and now i'm just curious to see how he reacts to his family and stuff like does he try killing them does he actually murder people i don't know we've been so back and forth with it but i don't know we can we'll just see yeah yeah um i i like that idea better like it's it's almost becoming like a star trek plot with the level of like oh the brown shirts are not human and they can sense electromagnetic waves and they and it's uh it's a double speak and everyone is they're members of the order like it's an over complication someone would make in their mind right uh someone who's unwell and similar to all of the metal talk from earlier it sounds like him just superimposing what he wants the world to be over what the world is so what may be happening is everyone's going to work normally and acting normal because the world's perfectly normal yeah um that's what i believe i think he's just i'm going to choose to believe that until it gets uh rescinded because that's far more interesting to me so the meeting went well there are two free brown shirts still alive and present from what they said the rest of the free fled southeast over the mountains and to another universe if you can believe that you're so strange i kind of accept it when they say it so calmly i also accept it because of what i've seen the changed building in the center of the city why columbus ohio this i wondered often the answer turned out to be the same as the answer to the question of what's happening in the center of the city this is the same as the answer to the question we have our first real allies now i swore their assistance when i told them what i'd seen a gigantic altar being built in front of the city capital building the base was mostly in place but the rest seemed to involve strange biomechanical artifice and a row of brown shirts chained and integrated to the machine they were aware and happy to be of service save one one remained free perhaps due to the same effect that kept me so perhaps due to the same effect that kept me so perhaps due to the same effect that kept me so and his face and arms were battered and and his face and arms were battered and and his face and arms were battered and bloody from torture it's a week until bloody from torture it's a week until bloody from torture it's a week until christmas and somehow i feel like it christmas and somehow i feel like it christmas and somehow i feel like it will be humanity's last day will be humanity's last day will be humanity's last day irony is not lost on me a holiday tale irony is not lost on me a holiday tale irony is not lost on me a holiday tale about the birth of religious savior will about the birth of religious savior will about the birth of religious savior will in some twisted sense be made true in some twisted sense be made true in some twisted sense be made true ready everyone if the plan we've built ready everyone if the plan we've built ready everyone if the plan we've built together doesn't work together doesn't work together doesn't work it's gonna get bloody they caught it's gonna get bloody they caught it's gonna get bloody they caught somebody skulking about the high rises somebody skulking about the high rises somebody skulking about the high rises downtown downtown downtown they know for certain that we exist now they know for certain that we exist now they know for certain that we exist now and they know why we exist and they know why we exist and they know why we exist because he was an escape mental patient because he was an escape mental patient because he was an escape mental patient i've come under intense scrutiny but i've come under intense scrutiny but i've come under intense scrutiny but will has been protecting me i fear that will has been protecting me i fear that will has been protecting me i fear that they will force me to undertake some they will force me to undertake some they will force me to undertake some act of loyalty to prove i'm not a act of loyalty to prove i'm not a act of loyalty to prove i'm not a heretic they've been keeping laura close heretic they've been keeping laura close heretic they've been keeping laura close i have a feeling that they're gonna ask i have a feeling that they're gonna ask i have a feeling that they're gonna ask me to kill her she and i haven't been me to kill her she and i haven't been me to kill her she and i haven't been close since my illness started but close since my illness started but close since my illness started but that's just one more reason i don't that's just one more reason i don't that's just one more reason i don't remain remain remain the altar construction seems right on the altar construction seems right on the altar construction seems right on schedule schedule schedule god it's not going to work i don't think god it's not going to work i don't think god it's not going to work i don't think even half of you will get this message in even half of you will get this message in even half of you will get this message in time but it's not going to work time but it's not going to work time but it's not going to work my brown shirt ally sensed it first and my brown shirt ally sensed it first and my brown shirt ally sensed it first and then an observatory contact of mine then an observatory contact of mine then an observatory contact of mine confirmed it confirmed it confirmed it not that the holy news isn't spreading not that the holy news isn't spreading not that the holy news isn't spreading among the change like wildfire among the change like wildfire among the change like wildfire there are five more objects on the way there are five more objects on the way there are five more objects on the way coming in at near light speed coming in at near light speed coming in at near light speed they'll be in here in a day and a half they'll be in here in a day and a half they'll be in here in a day and a half roughly same as the first took from roughly same as the first took from roughly same as the first took from detection to arrival detection to arrival detection to arrival god we've nearly lost it all to just one god we've nearly lost it all to just one god we've nearly lost it all to just one it sits up there mocking us brainwashing it sits up there mocking us brainwashing it sits up there mocking us brainwashing us and now five more coming this can't us and now five more coming this can't us and now five more coming this can't be a coincidence the timing's too neat be a coincidence the timing's too neat be a coincidence the timing's too neat a day and a half to christmas a day and a day and a half to christmas a day and a day and a half to christmas a day and a half to the ritual a day and a half a half to the ritual a day and a half a half to the ritual a day and a half to the arrival of five more apocalyptic to the arrival of five more apocalyptic to the arrival of five more apocalyptic near luminous objects will they hit earth near luminous objects will they hit earth near luminous objects will they hit earth if so we'll never know because we'll if so we'll never know because we'll if so we'll never know because we'll all be dead all be dead all be dead perhaps the moon saved us the first time perhaps the moon saved us the first time perhaps the moon saved us the first time but if these five also hit the moon but if these five also hit the moon but if these five also hit the moon the threat of the dreamer on high will the threat of the dreamer on high will the threat of the dreamer on high will grow sixfold grow sixfold grow sixfold what are these godforsaken things seeds what are these godforsaken things seeds what are these godforsaken things seeds embryos embryos embryos brain matrices portals what brain matrices portals what brain matrices portals what i can only imagine and theorizing it's i can only imagine and theorizing it's i can only imagine and theorizing it's pointless if we don't stop this before pointless if we don't stop this before pointless if we don't stop this before they arrive we lose we lose everything they arrive we lose we lose everything they arrive we lose we lose everything we have to move up the plan we have to we have to move up the plan we have to we have to move up the plan we have to strike now but it won't work unless strike now but it won't work unless strike now but it won't work unless everyone's on board everyone's on board everyone's on board we're in a serious bind here spread the we're in a serious bind here spread the we're in a serious bind here spread the word word word we have to strike at the alternate time we have to strike at the alternate time we discuss from the beginning we discuss from the beginning we discuss from the beginning yeah i mean i think that i think to yeah i mean i think that i think to yeah i mean i think that i think to affirm what i was thinking earlier affirm what i was thinking earlier affirm what i was thinking earlier he spent so much time before he spent so much time before he spent so much time before questioning his own sanity and now questioning his own sanity and now questioning his own sanity and now he's saying everything with an utmost he's saying everything with an utmost he's saying everything with an utmost certainty you know like i mean that certainty you know like i mean that certainty you know like i mean that that's to me it's also like his peak that's to me it's also like his peak that's to me it's also like his peak level of delusion is that he's like lost level of delusion is that he's like lost level of delusion is that he's like lost not necessarily like not necessarily i not necessarily like not necessarily i not necessarily like not necessarily i just like mentally ill or like cult like just like mentally ill or like cult like just like mentally ill or like cult like member people i just think it's like member people i just think it's like member people i just think it's like something where it's a grandeur you know something where it's a grandeur you know something where it's a grandeur you know it's like delusions of grandeur or it's like delusions of grandeur or it's like delusions of grandeur or whatever something big whatever something big whatever something big prophetic biblical you know that he can prophetic biblical you know that he can prophetic biblical you know that he can that he's latched on to it seems in my that he's latched on to it seems in my opinion opinion opinion yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah man man man yeah i think that uh makes the most sense yeah i think that uh makes the most sense yeah i think that uh makes the most sense uh going on just all the clues that have uh going on just all the clues that have uh going on just all the clues that have been been been like put out so far i agree i mean it like put out so far i agree i mean it like put out so far i agree i mean it makes you seem like it's hard for me to makes you seem like it's hard for me to makes you seem like it's hard for me to sorry i was gonna say like it makes it sorry i was gonna say like it makes it sorry i was gonna say like it makes it almost seem like he's going to almost seem like he's going to do something horrible on christmas is what do something horrible on christmas is what do something horrible on christmas is what it's it's kind of the build up is it's it's kind of the build up is it's it's kind of the build up is what i'm saying what i'm saying what i'm saying the story ends and this is all just uh the story ends and this is all just uh the story ends and this is all just uh prelude to that nashville christmas prelude to that nashville christmas prelude to that nashville christmas bomber who blew himself up in front of bomber who blew himself up in front of bomber who blew himself up in front of the uh the uh the uh the nsa center i mean like even like that the nsa center i mean like even like that the nsa center i mean like even like that though like that would be a insanely though like that would be a insanely though like that would be a insanely fascinating ending fascinating ending fascinating ending you know oh yeah if it was just like a you know oh yeah if it was just like a you know oh yeah if it was just like a guy that went crazy and killed himself guy that went crazy and killed himself guy that went crazy and killed himself yeah yeah yeah this is like what was yeah yeah yeah this is like what was yeah yeah yeah this is like what was happening in his head leading up to it happening in his head leading up to it happening in his head leading up to it all of the eccentrically crazy and all of the eccentrically crazy and all of the eccentrically crazy and chaotic things that he wrote down online chaotic things that he wrote down online chaotic things that he wrote down online especially like regurgitating all this especially like regurgitating all this especially like regurgitating all this in a forum is so in a forum is so in a forum is so it feels so real to me i don't know i've it feels so real to me i don't know i've it feels so real to me i don't know i've seen so many weird post man or emails seen so many weird post man or emails seen so many weird post man or emails that are sent to me of like that are sent to me of like that are sent to me of like very crazy ramblings where you're just very crazy ramblings where you're just very crazy ramblings where you're just like what the are you talking about but like what the are you talking about but like what the are you talking about but to that person how i mean how real is it to them it's probably you know to them it's probably you know to them it's probably you know it's reality it's reality it's reality yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it's hard for me to think back on it all it's hard for me to think back on it all it's hard for me to think back on it all quite a few of you have asked me to quite a few of you have asked me to quite a few of you have asked me to detail exactly what happened on that day detail exactly what happened on that day detail exactly what happened on that day now that january's over and two months now that january's over and two months now that january's over and two months passed i think i can face it passed i think i can face it passed i think i can face it news and understanding has been news and understanding has been news and understanding has been fragmented obviously but i do think i fragmented obviously but i do think i fragmented obviously but i do think i can paint a clear picture can paint a clear picture can paint a clear picture as you know our plan didn't work as you know our plan didn't work as you know our plan didn't work it's really good try but we were it's really good try but we were it's really good try but we were amateurs and half of us were spies and amateurs and half of us were spies and amateurs and half of us were spies and defectors defectors defectors it did help that absolute chaos broke out it did help that absolute chaos broke out it did help that absolute chaos broke out at the proper time i went there on at the proper time i went there on at the proper time i went there on christmas morning to the city center christmas morning to the city center christmas morning to the city center tens of thousands had gathered to see tens of thousands had gathered to see tens of thousands had gathered to see the coming of the dreamer on high the coming of the dreamer on high the coming of the dreamer on high my two brown shirt allies stood with me my two brown shirt allies stood with me my two brown shirt allies stood with me wearing the normal clothes i found for wearing the normal clothes i found for wearing the normal clothes i found for them them them i trained them on how to act and we i trained them on how to act and we i trained them on how to act and we worked together to mask or feel because worked together to mask or feel because worked together to mask or feel because they said their kin could send some they said their kin could send some they said their kin could send some to stand a bit away from the altar in the to stand a bit away from the altar in the to stand a bit away from the altar in the dense crowd while the high priest dense crowd while the high priest dense crowd while the high priest began giving a speech to thunderous began giving a speech to thunderous began giving a speech to thunderous cheers and applause cheers and applause cheers and applause the weird thing is the weird thing is the weird thing is weird in many ways as it turned out weird in many ways as it turned out weird in many ways as it turned out was the altar was already active was the altar was already active was the altar was already active they'd built it and completed the first they'd built it and completed the first they'd built it and completed the first parts of the ritual the night before parts of the ritual the night before parts of the ritual the night before the gigantic oval lay torn in space in the the gigantic oval lay torn in space in the the gigantic oval lay torn in space in the middle of it middle of it middle of it kept open by the row of chained brown kept open by the row of chained brown kept open by the row of chained brown shirts shirts shirts it was a portal an honest to god portal it was a portal an honest to god portal it was a portal an honest to god portal in space in space in space it's not the weird part though my two it's not the weird part though my two it's not the weird part though my two allies whispered that it shouldn't be allies whispered that it shouldn't be allies whispered that it shouldn't be able to do what it was doing it wasn't able to do what it was doing it wasn't able to do what it was doing it wasn't just a portal in space among the random just a portal in space among the random just a portal in space among the random flitting locations on earth displayed i flitting locations on earth displayed i flitting locations on earth displayed i recognize some as very ancient but recognize some as very ancient but recognize some as very ancient but bustling with life bustling with life bustling with life it was showing other times too I saw a tribe of cavemen, I saw the Colossus of Rhodes, I saw the crowd, our crowd, and then and there from behind. Many of the sea of people waved at themselves for a few moments, laughing and cheering. That should have been impossible, my allies told me. The configuration of the altar was not just augmenting and focusing the abilities of the brownshirts, it was fracturing spacetime too. Whatever might have intended to use that portal, they said, it was something extraordinarily dangerous. They couldn't emphasize it enough. There was dangerous, like a gun, really dangerous, like a nuclear bomb, extremely dangerous, like a universe-eating swarm of machines, and then whatever this was, it was worse, worse than all that. They couldn't even hazard a guess as to what it might be. But it didn't make sense to me. The dream we were on high was on the moon. That much had to be true. The object had hit, the moon had gone molten, and remained molten. So massive as it was, casting lurid orange over my free senses and the crowds and high rises around me, and then, the dream we were on high had begun his insidious work. He was already here. He didn't need a portal strong enough to fracture spacetime. He was already here. He was just stuck on the moon. And now, five more somethings were coming to reinforce his power. So what was this portal for? I understood the gravity of our errors the moment I saw him. A black-robed figure moved through the crowd, parting disciples like waves. A hood covered his face, but I knew who it was the moment I saw him. He walked slowly up to the altar and faced his high priest. My brother Will stood to the side, among many helpers and assistants, each dressed in flowing purple and gold. Next to them, they saw the moon. Next to them, and to many strategic places, stood brutish men with guns. We'd added provisions in our plan to handle the men with guns, but the plan was on thin ice now. The dream we were on high was already here. They'd summoned him the night before. They'd brought him to Earth somehow, the night before. We'd been tricked. We'd been outsmarted. They hadn't cared about the holiday at all. They just used it to subtly dupe us. He moved past me. Close enough to almost touch. I thought in my mind that I should pull my knife, leap forward, and slice his throat. But chill waves kept me frozen in place. My two brown-shirt allies looked away, lest he sense them. Had that been my chance? I began feeling my limbs again as he stepped up onto the altar. At that moment, the crowd murmured, and I turned to look with the rest of humanity. A single man ran down the empty wake left by the dreamer's path. I knew he was dead. He looked wild and half-homeless, but desperate. The men with guns hefted their weapons and began to aim, but they were too late to stop his simple attempt. He hurled a book at the portal. That was all. With twenty-thousand other pairs of eyes, I watched it sail through the air. It wasn't a fiction book. It had no image on the cover. It must have been a journal. It looked like it was about to fall short, but the effect was an optical illusion. It curled up, and I couldn't see it. I couldn't see it with my eyes. we never understood what we were facing the dreamer hadn't come with that first object it had always been there it had in all likelihood formed the moon by its arrival that's why we have well had two moons why one has always been so different from the other the other moon lurks still beyond the molten ring glimmering with reflected orange i don't like that sight at all not one bit i still feel watched it'll go back to staying beneath my horizon for three months soon like it was from october to december and i can't wait for that reprieve let the southern hemisphere take a turn feeling creeped out some unknown power shot those objects at us eons ago some power unrelated to the dreamer that's what we figure now and i'm sure you've all heard the theories the first object was a calibrator the next five were right on target and completely obliterated the moon just to make sure whoever had fired those objects hadn't been trying to kill us they've been trying to save us had they suffered at the hands of the dreamer on high or something like that had this incredible gift been their final act scientists turned their telescopes towards the origin point but there was nothing left there now that star had gone nova when it was gone earth was in its infancy whoever they'd been they'd saved us without a word without a single thank you still we thank them the world over but i can't help feeling like we're not safe the words the dreamer spoke to me and to nobody else linger with me was it actually in its own twisted way trying to save us from something worse brown shirts have moved on but they left me and the other members of the resistance to save us from something worse and i can't help but feel like i'm going to have to go back to the old allies they spoke of but i'm sure they'll come back for us to make sure we're all right second they left us with a small metallic chip one of several they had that will show us the way to some sort of safe haven if they ever managed to return the chip is very old i'm not sure how to use it but i'm certain we'll figure it out in the coming darkness turns out to be real finally now this was the odd one they warned that someone or something was hunting them they didn't know who or what it was only that they sensed it on their trail and it had already passed through here following the rest of their kind there's no guarantee the hunter would not return they requested if anyone came through here asking about them lie gladly i told them this is why i give no specific descriptions in my tale here i didn't want the hunter to know what they look like as far as anyone else is concerned they're just slightly odd humans me i'm procrastinating i have to go visit will's grave with laura today dad can't go of course because he drinks even more than before this all happened before he killed tracy the only woman who put up with him just me and my sister now i'm left in will's place to take care of the tattered remains on the bright side i don't need pills anymore the dreamer permanently gave me wholeness of mind even as it took away my older brother he died there on that altar taking the dreamers attack in my place he died there a hero along with the thousands of others who didn't survive christmas day and the human race recovers from their shared hangover together with me as a new member i've got a strong handle on myself now and a new confidence born of everything i went through i'm even going on a second date with ashley in a few days and this time i think i won't screw it up silver linings i suppose yeah i'm finally a functioning member of the human race all right only i'm not sure i like this club can't help but dwell on the statistics that came out last week according to the surveys and studies done after the fact only 18 of the population truly came under the dreamers control 18 that's how many people were 100% brainwashed that's how many human beings had completely whole minds it was like a grand social experiment the lead scientist said on tv only 18 the rest were partially controlled or totally free the rest simply fell in line out of fear self-preservation and paranoia that's the thing it's like so many eras in human history nobody knew who was who nobody knew who to trust lines of communication were controlled by key members of the change and neighbors were turned against one another in classic fashion i can't shake the dark despair that such news leaves in me the dreamer had no power except what we gave it the end the end wow uh what a uh wow oh god good lord what a lot to take in on that last part i don't know i don't know if if the author is wanting us to believe that was all real or if it's just a man who is because this is the thing too that he's still posting on a forum and i think about all the shit that i've seen him even my emails where it's that detailed and that insane to where i'm curious to know because also he stopped responding to like the replies you know if he's just if he's just mindlessly regurgitating shit that he's like that he's saying or believing i don't know what do you think um okay so i think he's still crazy and i think that's what all that in part was because if it's supposed to be literal that's really lame i don't like that wow it's like yeah well it started as like you know a unreliable narrator creepy thing but then it became star trek uh i don't like that but if you kind of take this to be he is no like we if we interpret the stuff that's happening in the first two parts is real world like his brother takes him home and he gets to a big fight with his family and his stepmom quote unquote dies maybe she just leaves because she can't deal with this anymore and now he's just so lost in the sauce uh because there's that mention at the end that he's completely off his medication maybe this is just what happens when he gets all the way off his medication right well like he leaves reality to such an absurd degree we've said he said earlier too that he was like i'm running low or whatever that was a while back that was like in part two when he's like i can't sh or like you know and i haven't even thought about how i have like i basically have no medication left i think he said that in part two i think he said that in part two yeah so i don't know i mean i like this idea of trying to decipher a guy with the fantastical illusion that is presenting in front of him uh versus the reality of like his family trying to help and him kind of slowly decaying mentally over time and giving into uh i don't know not taking his meds or just you know not having the support system not being able to talk with people i really really really enjoyed parts one and two specifically part one with how back and forth it was that kind of illusion that was breaking up and i think that like a horror a horror story written from the perspective of a senile person that is like unapologetically like filtering their thoughts in a way that almost feels cohesive to where you yeah you can't decipher what is real and what's not real i think is a really interesting concept i agree though i think that if it goes into this fantastical place with like you know the ancient god and stuff i think it's practically a bit a bit corny you know so i guess i choose to believe that it's uh that it's yeah i'll choose to believe that too because there's enough clues for it and i think that's far more interesting i think it's just it's very well written i think like part one especially i really liked the way part one was i like unsureness i liked part two as well with the date and i liked like there was a lot of the the way that it was written the context clues and the continuous subversion of expectation or the subversion of like we're going down this road actually just kidding we're going down this road really did make me feel like i was reading something manic and i am trying to carry that through with the end part because the end part is so heavy on lore and like this like almost apocalyptic future almost like the uh i have no mouth i must scream like the am computer and like them living in this thing for 100 and whatever it was 80 years or whatever the it was like uh it it's so much to take in so quickly even though we've been in this other place you know that i can't help but feel like that is the actual conclusion is this man and once again like the kind of thought that i had earlier of like each time we see these breaks we have no idea the amount of time it is between him going so to me it's like this i i like to think that it's almost it's been months of him between post of almost you know almost like he lost in this state lost in the state and he comes back as if no nothing has stopped you know uh yeah i think it's interesting but all in all extremely well written i just very fun i'm very curious to see how people decipher it as well i think it's impossible to not like parts one though but part one was just phenomenal really loved how the story got set up and stuff and i think that like you know when you're doing a story the hardest part is like finding out how to end it or wrap it up and i'm curious to see if people deciphered it the same way did they get too lost in it you know if grounding it more uh outside of this outside of the unreliable narrator would that have made it a stronger more satisfying ending because right now i can't tell i can't tell if we're both just like the the wind is out of our sails a bit and we're just kind of like oh you know okay or not or how are you feeling so reading the comments it seems that people are like oh the brown shirts connects to another story he did about blah blah blah so it really feels like it's supposed to be the same thing with psychosis that he was not actually insane and that this is all real and the stuff so that does that is depressing because that's way less interesting um i don't want to start reading a horror story and then it become a star wars spinoff it kind of reminds me of if that's the case i'm just going to ignore it and pretend like yeah yeah well it's all in his head but i think that you can do that if you want to because at least the way that i was reading it is that once it turns into this like you can't do that if you want to because at least the way that i was reading it is that once it turns into this like ramblings i was almost trying to decipher like okay he's at this altar i was also like he's i was thinking the same he's at like a meeting he's at like a halfway house well i thought my idea was because he kept talking about the one above all is coming and all he has armed guards i was thinking that he it was like a speech some politician was giving or something and he had interpreted like this famous figure as like the person causing him pain so i thought the reveal was going to be that like he assassinated the president or something like that because in his mind it's some multidimensional beast thing right him killing his family or something would be interesting in in this like kind of like rough relationship he has with them already and then him kind of psychotically breaking and then feeling like his dad's a part of this or if he wasn't a space cult is kind of fun yeah or if he was in a hospital the whole time it could be like uh it's like the superintendent of the hospital and uh he's been convinced that he's evil and he's convinced other people who are equally as crazy as him that that's their evil so they have to do something about it and then he's like oh my god i'm not going to do anything about it have this plot to assassinate him that doesn't work and he gets thrown in solitary i'm going to pretend that's what the ending was because that's actually cool all in all i'm very curious very very curious to see what people say um in what audio listeners uh think but let us know in the comments we appreciate it and also if you've uh hung out with us this long and you're maybe you're driving to work or you're just chilling out during your uh your break at lunch then uh maybe consider listening to us on audio platforms like spotify and apple podcast and give us a nice rating there and we'll see you next time and if you want a little extra something on the side we might be doing a little uh maybe some creep tv on patreon and just reading more exclusive stories uh and you want extra content feel free to sign up for patreon it does help out the channel and we appreciate it absolutely um i do appreciate that story really bummed me out i was gonna say i was gonna say i was gonna say you sound very dead i know i know well i i was like well maybe maybe if you think back if you look at the brown shirts are representative of like the guards at uh facilities and because there's a speech they have armed guards maybe it's a prison and i was like doing all this math and then people in the comments were like oh cool these are the brown shirts from your other space story and it's like oh my gosh so i'm just well you know we at least got we at least got uh scooby-doo swallowing a shotgun barrel and i think that's at least worth the price feeling like i'm feeling a little rut row raggy right now it is a lot i'm gonna fucking i'm parking the mystery machine in my garage and shutting the door and really revving the engine a couple times yeah really take me to that big scooby snack in the sky um but i i'm gonna pretend like there's a paragraph at the end where it's like doctor's note since going off medication uh patient has gone further into delusion i would have been seen for monitoring that would that would be great that'd be awesome even ending it with being like hey guys this is will uh my brother fucking walked and walked into a train shot obama man on high yeah my my my brother shot john mccain uh and he's gone crazy just want to say sorry for this rambling blah blah even that would have been like okay well there you go i'd be like great awesome perfect that sounds fantastic that's all i wanted but as we were getting to the end and i was scrolling and i saw the bottom i'm like no no please i know i know i know man i i could tell the yeah that the wind was out of your sails i that's that sucks but well until next time give us a little give us a quirky thing your little last your last word goodbye everyone you have you have to say stay oh stay creeped everyone stay creeped and if you have a mental illness uh just look don't look up at the moon don't look up at the moon raggy ruckshot instead of buckshot ruckshot oh that that made me cringe that was terrible all right just end it there just end it there you you this episode is brought to you by txu energy for the first time ever texans have an energy plan that combines free nights all year with daytime summer savings it's called free nights and cool summer you get free nights every night all year long plus a 25 bonus toward your daytime use all summer it's a first of its kind plan created for how texans actually use energy discover how much more you could save with free nights and cool summer txu energy energy for everything visit txu.com for more information rep number one zero zero zero four