TERRA INCOGNITA

A Tale of Two Synchronicities (Chapter VI: Graduation)

If God is love, why is the world overrun by monsters?

Image by author (Instagram: @williambluemusic // #csc_terraINCOGNITA)

⏮️ Chapter V: Wired

Image by author (Instagram: @williambluemusic // #csc_terraINCOGNITA)

[embed]Source: Terra Incognita (Soundtrack) // Playlist available on Spotify and Apple Music

CHAPTER VI: GRADUATION

WILLIAM BLUE

“Sometimes the best way to deal with forks in the road is with a butterfly knife.” — Mr. Blue

I didn’t get it at the time. I was only a dumb kid.

Wise-cracking, whip-smart, smart ass, smart Alec.

And Dad was always a little too ahead of his time.

He’s been incepting me with seeds of wisdom since I could understand words. He said so many things I didn’t get until I was older.

But I get it now.

I think.

It has something to do with being adaptable and changeable when facing conflict. Float like a butterfly, but stay sharp as a balisong blade. Stay quick on your feet. Life will throw everything at you.

I was only thirteen when the Default State called for his capture. It wasn’t long before the dark agents came. Didn’t even have the courtesy to ring the doorbell.

It was a watershed moment to end all watershed moments — but not the good kind, the reality-shattering kind.

Just like the night of Graduation.

Nothing broke my brain more than seeing my Dad being dragged (looking like a blind and drunken John Wick), managing to raise a thumbs up, followed by a hang loose, despite being “stunned” from the neck down.

“Don’t worry, son,” Dad said, raising his index finger. The dark agent froze in his tracks and looked through the front door at the two dark agents standing on the front lawn. “Uncle Lucas has some bones to pick with me, and I don’t mean ribs or chicken wings. He’s cooked, son. He’s not the man I knew. Maybe never was.”

“What?” I said, my voice cracking as my heart and gut sank with the viscosity of molasses, all the way to the depths of hell. That’s how it felt. I can kinda feel it now.

“Creative differences,” Dad responded with a chuckle. “We have some fundamental disagreements regarding the future.”

The dark agent turned his head to face me, looking me in the eyes as I watched in horror from the gaps between the staircase balusters, eyes dilated — mind cycling between fight, flight, freeze and fawn, only to short-circuit and get stuck on freeze like a sentient doormat.

I wanted to fight all of them, but I was too weak and chicken shit. Just a dumb kid. Didn’t know how to fight like I do now.

“Billy Blue,” the dark agent, named Miles, said, with that trademark distortion, as he dragged my father’s immobilized 3D meat vessel by the shirt collar, towards the front door. The closet next to them was made of reflective glass — but dark agents don’t tend to examine their reflections, not on duty. “I’m sorry you’re witnessing this.”

“Why?” I asked. “Mr. Black ordered this?”

“I do what I’m ordered to do,” Miles said. “I hope someday you’ll understand why I must do what I do.”

“But my dad’s a hero,” I said. “What’s he to you?”

“It’s true, I think so too,” Miles responded, with zero pause, nodding slightly, the sincerity in his voice clashing with the appearance of the black low-poly mask, looking like an 8-bit statue with consciousness, but without the capacity to feel. It was too dark to see Miles’ eyes through those eye-slits. I’d get a better look at his face around five years later, on the night of Graduation. “Your father is a hero. But sometimes heroes lose.”

Sky was purple as a darkened bruise. Made the world beyond my father’s home seem so cruel and uncaring. But I think any middle-class Aurumite would agree with my Dad’s famous assertion: “What good is living in the lap of luxury if you’re eventually going to get flushed away with the spoils of shit?”

I wish I could’ve said some whip-smart, smart Alec shit like that to save his ass. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was just a dumb kid. I didn’t know anything about anything.

Still don’t.

Wise-cracking, whip-smart, smart ass, smart Alec.

Just not smart enough to pull off some brilliant main character shit. Not at the time. But I grew into this world as much as it has grown on me…

Not all that much, honestly.

If only I had said something like, “Yeah? Well, if my father is a hero, what does that make you?”

Miles may have said something along the lines of: “I don’t know what to say, Billy Blue. Maybe I’m scared too.”

If I had the balls and tongue I have now, at 26, that I didn’t have at 13, I would’ve found a better way around this. I would have gone scorched Earth.

Dad had just been staring at me this whole time, smiling — craning his neck up from the hardwood floor — as Miles soliloquied.

After a deep breath, Dad lowered his finger and let his arm and neck go limp, as if the paralysis had only spread to those parts of his body at that moment. I didn’t know any better at the time, and I didn’t realize he was faking it. But now that shit is clear as Sake.

And in retrospect, I can see that he was never really paralyzed at all. And that he never actually died that night. He just let me believe it for nearly thirteen years.

Dad smacked his lips and said, “Anyways, be good, son. Take care of your mom and F7.”

Then, as if God hit the play button on the scene, the dark agent resumed dragging my father out by the shirt collar, Dad’s gray sweatpants and blue flip-flops scraping across the threshold — as if mimicking the fabric of reality — for me, at least in that moment.

“This is not goodbye, son,” Dad said, in a warm and assertive tone, as he does when he speaks in the future tense. “It’s a See you later, ya wise-cracking, whip-smart, smart ass, smart Alec alligator!”

I said nothing. I couldn’t even believe this was happening. I did some reality checks to make sure, pinching my arm a few times, plugging my nose and inhaling. No air came through. I tried again. No fucking air entered my nasal passages. Despair sank in like gravel in my intestines. Butterfly knives in my stomach. Cue waterworks.

I promised myself I would never feel so powerless again.

“I’m so excited to see the man you become, son,” Dad said.

Holy shit. Dad can see now, can’t he?

I looked at the digital clock on the fireplace mantle in the living room:

1:13

The door slammed shut, and I found myself alone in the dark, in my Dad’s house. I ran up to the peephole and observed as the dark agent dragged his limp meat vessel down the wooden steps and onto the glasphalt, in front of the two dark agents waiting on the empty driveway.

Neighbours in the houses along our street watched in horror and screamed in protest from inside, knocking against the windows, smacking against the doors — every single one afraid to step outside past the midnight curfew the Default State implemented around 13 years ago, back when Mr. Black rose to power and disposed of the coalition — one democratically elected co-leader at a time, Mr. Green and Mr. Blue included — in two fell swoops.

I looked at the clock once more.

1:14

Oh my God, I thought. This is real-life.

In the span of a split-second, the fear of losing my Dad outweighed the fear of getting brutalized and beaten by monsters. So it goes.

In time, I would grow up to become one of them.

Just like Damon…

Just like Grenadine…

If only it weren’t for the night of Graduation.

Our lives were supposed to go in another direction, but here we are…

Here I am, sitting alone in a pitch black dining booth, reliving the last time I saw my father alive, trying to figure out how it could really be him, standing outside in the hallway, alive, waiting for me, telling me to take my time as everyone else is in the dining booth on the other side, probably ordering food without me, as I overthink this to oblivion…

The three dark agents were preoccupied as I hopped off the front porch, crouching, my fists planted on the grass to hide behind the glowing shrubbery, forget-me-nots and roses my mom planted, among all the photosynthesizer fibres that convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and electricity.

Miles was facing the street, cellphone pressed to his ear. The other two dark agents (whose identities I never discovered) were focused on keeping my Dad sitting upright, pressing a Knick-Knack onto the back of his shirt, below the collar, releasing nanoparticles into every inch of the fabric to make the material tear-resistant to support his body weight as…

A red velvet rope fell from the sky, the golden clip-hook dangling above Dad’s head like an improperly rendered 3D halo.

My pulse quickened as I watched from behind the hedge, barely breathing, stomach more twisted than the Twisted Teas I was stashing in my school backpack at the time.

As they secured the hook at the end of the rope to the Knick-Knack’s buckle, my adrenaline kicked in and, after heaving a deep breath, I flexed my abs like a Super-Saiyan, jumped up from behind the phosphorescent hedge, and charged in their direction (like Naruto after shotgunning two Red Bulls, doing a less-than-hundred-meter dash to save someone he loves).

The rope began to pull, lifting my Dad by his Lacoste shirt collar up from the ground. As Dad’s feet separated from his dangling flip flops, I collided into him in a tight embrace, my arms encircling the circumference of his ribcage, fingernails digging into the edges of his scapulas as if they were crimps on a rock-climbing wall.

“WILLIAM!” Dad screamed as the rope lifted us both off the ground (two feet… three feet… five feet… ten feet…) and above the altitude of every house in the suburbs. “NO!”

Caught off guard, Miles pulled a 180-degree ballet pivot, dropping his cell phone onto the road, then falling to his knees to fish his phone out of the gutter. “Shit! Operator! Can you hear me? PAUSE!”

Fifteen feet… twenty feet… thirty feet…

I screamed until my lungs caught fire, as my arms held on for dear life, and the life of my father, with all the strength and love I could muster and fit into a moment.

My head was pressed against his chest, eyes closed, welling with tears I couldn’t wipe away, paired with the thrill one would get when doing the opposite of skydiving.

Forty feet… Fifty feet… Sixty feet…

“OPERATOR!” Miles shouts. “PAUSE! WILLIAM JUST — “

I was screaming and crying so loud that I couldn’t even hear him choke.

I lift my head up from the makeshift pillow of my forearms atop the smooth, varnished wood of the horigotatsu table. The sensors on the ceiling sense my movement, and the darkened dining booth fills with light again.

I look at the rice paper door at the end of the room, directly in my line of sight, then at my reflection staring back at me in the gold-tinged walls around it.

“Alright,” I say, standing up and taking a deep breath, filling my diaphragm, as if trying to extract courage from the oxygen. But I know that’s not how it works. “I’m on my way out.”

“Sounds good,” Damon says on the other end of the line. “Should I hang up?”

**> @AurumIntelligence End call.

CALL ENDED.**

I press my palms onto the hardwood and hoist myself out of the sunken floor, and make my way toward the exit, stopping at the rice paper door and heaving another helping of oxygen.

I should’ve brought my butterfly knife.

Ten minutes ago, Parker was standing where I’m standing now, pressing his ear against the rice paper door and feeling its surface with his fingers.

Not sure if he was listening for threats in the hallway or doing a reality check. Maybe both.

“That’s a curious texture,” Parker said, looking at his index finger, as if having just touched a slimy, invisible substance. “Isn’t it odd that rice paper doors aren’t made out of rice paper? Or rice?”

“No shit?” I said.

“They’re made of trees. Plant fibres.”

“Ah,” I said. “So they’re made out of… paper.”

“Exactly,” he said. “Actual rice paper is edible.”

“I’m glad you told me,” I said. “I was about to tear a piece off and try it. I’m that hungry.”

“Smart ass,” Parker said, with a light chuckle. “You gotta work on your delivery.”

“My what?”

“It’s tough to tell when you’re being sarcastic and when you’re being sincere.”

“You’ll get better at it,” I replied.

Parker shrugged and waved his hand under the door handle. The rice paper door slid open gradually, revealing Denise Rouge waiting on the other side, a giant grin on her face.

“Hi!” Denise greeted.

“Hey, you,” Parker said, as they collided into a loving embrace, sharing a passionate kiss as if they were long-lost lovers in a made-for-TV Hallmark movie. “I should’ve known it was you.”

“Surprised?”

“Very.”

Like a film director unintentionally caught in the frame, Dad was standing next to them, off to the side, tilting his head to peer into the dining booth, expecting me to step out, waving his hand, then giving a thumbs up, followed by a hang loose. He looked misty-eyed yet brimming with joy.

“Give me a minute,” I said from the dining booth, still seated at the Horigotatsu table, as Parker and Denise walked into the one at the other end of the hallway. Damon, Grenadine, and Kira stepped into view, looking in through the gap. I raised a thumbs up followed by a hang-loose. “Give me five. I need to remember something.”

“Take your time, son,” Dad said, as the rice paper door gradually slid to a close.

I crossed my forearms on the table and lay my head down, as if playing 7-Up back in grade school.

> @AurumIntelligence Show me the vidi of the last time I saw him. You know which one

> ABSOLUTELY, WILLIAM BLUE. CLOSE YOUR EYES.

Graphic by MstBeauty; text by author

GALATEA NEPTUNE

William finally steps out of the booth and walks into his father’s arms, lips quivering ever-so-subtly as they sustain a hug. He’s on the verge of crying, but he’s holding back his tears.

It’s okay, William.

Feel what you feel.

Gosh, he’s about an inch and a half taller than his Dad now.

“It’s okay, son,” Jericho says. “I’m here.”

“Is this real?” William asks mindlessly, as if still unsure, looking for reassurance that this isn’t a dream.

“Yes, son,” Jericho replies, as they step away from the hug and look at each other.

I watch from the side, smiling, waiting for William to acknowledge me standing here — in the flesh, just like he wanted.

“I told you, didn’t I? I told you I’d see you later. That I’d see the man you’d become. Look at you now. My son is all grown up.”

“You can see now?”

“Crisp and clear,” Jericho answers. “Like Ultra-HD.”

“You have a lot of explaining to do,” William says, before turning to me, half-smizing with those misty brown sad boy eyes. “Hey, Galatea.”

“Hi William,” I say, with a smile, my eyes getting a little misty as well — no wasabi necessary. “I got your message.”

“You heard my song?”

“Mhm,” I say. “Love that you kept those harmonies I recorded. And your head voice has improved so much.”

“Thanks,” he replies. “Been practicing lots.”

“It shows.”

What a beautiful night this is…

The rice paper door of the dining booth on the other end slides open, and Kira pokes her head out.

“Well?” Kira says. “Are y’all gonna join us? We’re waiting for you guys. We already ordered.”

“Sounds good,” I say.

“Yeah,” William says, looking at me, then at Jericho. “Let’s eat. That’s what normal people do at restaurants.”

“I don’t think any of us could pass as normal if we tried,” I say.

“I stopped trying years ago.”

“Sweet Absolute Infinity,” Jericho says, seated to the right of William, who’s sitting next to me. Grenadine to my left. Damon beside her. Kira, Parker, and Denise are sitting on the other side of the long, rectangular horigotatsu table, all of us waiting for our food to arrive. “Jesus Christ, my chosen saviour; Buddha the awakened one; Muhammad the prophet that cannot be put to paper; the Tao called Tao that cannot be named, the Matrix that cannot be played, but lived through, every waking day; Mary the virgin mother; Gaia the Earth Goddess; and God, the Alpha and Omega, and every letter in between, the original programmer and father of existence itself; Source, the nameless, formless consciousness that wished to know itself; the Mind-at-large; the galaxies in the chambers of our hearts; and the spirit within all that resides in the soul, Terra Incognita. We thank you for setting off the chain of events dating back to the Big Bang that allowed us, through our free will and imperfect selves, to congregate over the delicious meals that have not yet arrived as of this moment, on this beautiful Monday night. May we never forget that we are living the dream. Believe you me. Amen.”

“Amen,” the others and I say in unison.

“Finally,” Kira says. “I’ve been waiting for this ever since we got out of the cab.”

“Same,” Grenadine says. Parker’s eyes narrow slightly, a suspicious look on his face, shooting a quick glance at William. Denise places her palm over his hand, diverting his attention back to the present moment. I look at William, who’s looking down at his open palms, Simian lines on both hands — an unbroken line between his heart and head line. Just like his father.

“So,” Jericho says, looking at me and Denise. “Should we tell them now?”

“Tell us what?” Damon says in a playfully inquisitive tone.

Oh God, he thinks it’s something positive.

“We’re not gonna wait for dessert?” Denise asks, looking at Jericho, then glancing at me, as she bites her lip with her left canine. I nod. “Hmm…”

“What is it?” Grenadine says. William’s eyes dart around the room, but he says nothing. He’s having one of his quiet phases again — when he’s too caught up in his thoughts to be present, and he says nothing for what feels like a micro-decade.

“I don’t—” Denise begins, scratching the back of her head, then running her fingers through her shiny, flowy auburn hair. It smells like strawberries up close. She locks eyes with me. “I don’t know how to put this. Do you?”

I immediately think of the sugarcoated way Cherry said it, then blurt it out.

“Planet Earth is going through a psychotic break,” I say, then pause as I figure out how to phrase the following sentence. “Ummm, let’s just say Earthling humanity finally unalived itself in the most — um — nuclear way.”

The booth falls silent.

“Oh, you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Damon says.

[embed]Source: Terra Incognita (Soundtrack) // Playlist available on Spotify and Apple Music

GRENADINE BLACK

Before we left for TokyoVille Lounge, I decided to take a nap, but not before Damon tried to convince me to stay up and play video games in the living room.

Standing at the doorway, he had a look of concern on his face.

“Come on,” Damon said. “We rarely hang out nowadays, outside of — y’know — work.”

“I’m serious, Damon,” I said, sitting upright on my bed, “You brought up the flashback last night with William in the room. That’s why I cut you off. I told you not to talk about it.”

“I’m sorry,” Damon said, lowering his head slightly, as if being scolded. Oh, fucking stop it. You always look so sorry whenever I call you out. “I didn’t know what to say to get you to leave.”

“Um, hey Grenadine,” I mocked, lowering my voice in my best attempt at a Damon Green impression. “I know you’ve been dealing with some dredged-up trauma recently. I saw some of the footage Aurum Intelligence was compiling on the timeline, and I think it’s going to be really triggering for you.”

“But that’s sorta what I said!”

“Yeah, just the last part. You opened with, ‘Your eyes look tired, you should take the rest of the night off.’”

“You’re nitpicking.”

“Am I?”

“I was trying to be honest,” Damon insisted, shoulders slumped. “With you! I was trying not to talk about specifics! Should I have said Tunatataki instead? Tell me! Tell me how to be good to you.”

“Stop,” I said, taking a moment to take a deep breath — gradual and slow so he doesn’t notice my diaphragm pushing against my ribcage. “Just fucking stop.”

“I don’t know how to be good to you,” Damon said. “I don’t know how to be better… But I’ll keep trying.”

“This is why we don’t hang out much anymore,” I stated, filtering out the emotionality and telling it straight. “As friends. Because you’re allergic to accountability.”

Damon sighed, opened his mouth as if to retort with something clever, as he usually does, but he said nothing else.

Wait a beat.

“You need to choose your words more carefully,” I said. “My circadian rhythm is fucked because of these flashbacks. I’m scared to go to sleep. I’m scared of deep REM, and even when I’m jacked into the Magnuscape, I lose control of the dream, and it puts me right back to graduation night. It’s as vivid as the vidi. I might as well have never deleted it.”

“Y’know,” Damon said. “We can always get Aurum Intelligence to retrieve it from the archives.”

“No. Because I know you and William still have your vidis of graduation night. I have a firm grasp of what happened before y’all barged into the room to save me. Which, thank you, by the way. I know you always love to hear me say that, my valorous knight with a heart of gold.”

“Oh my God,” Damon groaned, heaving a sigh, then scoffing. “I’m trying to be real with you, but you’re being such a bitch, like—“

“Okay, fuck off now,” I said, waving my hand dismissively. Damon heaves another sigh, shaking his head and running his fingers through his locks of caramel brown hair.

A solid tell that I’ve won the argument and he’s run out of things to say.

“Tunatataki. Or whatever. Go play some Mario Kart with William and Kira. I’m not the one you wanna play with.”

“Fine,” Damon said as he stepped out of my bedroom, closing the door behind him. “I’m sorry.”

The first thing I remember was the sensation of falling.

I was in the air for one or two seconds — but I was Blisscrashed, so every second felt like a whole minute. The moment my body collided against the bed, the walls of my dorm began to shake — as if the weight of my body was enough to set off a low-magnitude earthquake.

Clayton, my boyfriend at the time, pounced on top of the bed soon after, his sweaty palms grasping both my shins. In slow motion, it seemed.

My perception of time was as dilated as my eyes.

The glass tubes on the ceiling radiated a bubblegum pink glow. Levi stood at the foot of the bed like a hungry wolf as he waited for Clayton to give the green light. I swear, they were both salivating at the mouth. The look of lust mixed with hunger on both of their faces had me thinking they were going to devour me whole. My psychedelic-flooded brain began to distort my perception of 3D reality.

Thanks to the Snowcrash, I couldn’t move and began to hallucinate the two of them transforming into anthropomorphic wolves.

Thanks to the Orange Bliss, I could feel every sensation ten-fold.

Suddenly, the door to my dorm room swung open, and Anila, my roommate at the time, barged in.

“Nuh-uh,” Anila said, standing at the doorway, clapping her hands loudly. “NOPE! GET OFF OF HER! GET THE FUCK OUT! BOTH OF YOU!”

Clayton’s hands held onto my shins as if they were handlebars, dragging me off the bed and onto the carpet below, sitting upright. It was then I realized it wasn’t Clayton who was pulling, but Damon who had yanked this rabid wolf off of me.

I blinked hard, and Clayton looked like himself again, in human form, on all fours, as he struggled to find his footing before Damon kicked him in the gut. Clayton screamed.

“C’mon, Billy Blue,” Levi mocked, “What’s she to you, bro? Y’all white-knighting for the slut duchess or something?”

Anila ran to the foot of the bed to tend to me, looking me in the eyes and placing her hand on my shoulder.

The boys fought in the background, as if it were some televised UFC fight happening safely behind a vidscreen.

They seemed farther away than they were, but Anila was ignoring all of the chaos and focusing all her attention on me.

“Are you okay?” Anila asked.

No. The word wouldn’t leave my lips as anything other than a slurred groan. Got the message across, anyways.

I was squinting my eyes to see through the spaces between the bursting fractals overlaid on top of Anila’s olive skin, as if it were a psychedelic filter on the Gram. So many beautiful colours.

Now all I see is red.

Every punch Damon and Clayton landed set off miniature fireworks explosions in my 3D perception, like the onomatopoeic sound bubbles in the pile of vintage comic books that sat on my bookshelf.

POW! BAM! WHAM!

After a right hook landed on his jaw, Clayton began backing up toward the balcony, looking nervously at the open door leading to the hallway.

Anila noticed this and immediately stood in front of the exit, standing about ten feet behind Damon — an extra security measure in case Damon couldn’t block Clayton from escaping.

“Nuh-uh,” Anila said, cool and composed, even though I knew she was scared too. “You’re not going anywhere until the dark agents get here. They might even come in through the balcony. You’re both fucked.”

“Royally fucked,” William interjected.

Every droplet of blood that fell on the floor was like a bomb inside a raindrop, falling onto a field of green pastures — where the carpet was supposed to be.

That’s when I truly swallowed the pill that I, in fact, did not live in a utopia — as my father manipulated me to believe.

Levi froze as Anila said this, glancing over at Clayton, his focus diverted for a second or two — but that was all William needed to high-kick him in the ear. The second Levi fell to the ground, he transformed from wolf back to human. Then he began whimpering like an injured child who wanted his mommy — when only minutes ago he called me a slut.

I could almost hear the tinnitus-like high-pitched ringing that he was almost certainly experiencing at that moment.

Clayton then froze, and, whether it was adrenaline or cowardice, stepped out onto the balcony, presumably to make an escape.

But we were on the 22nd floor.

The balcony of the 21st floor was ten feet down, but his fear of the consequences of his actions overrode his capacity to act rationally. Damon stepped onto the balcony as well to see Clayton straddling the railing as if it was an out-of-order mechanical bull. I wish I could’ve gotten up and stopped him from doing what he was going to do next…

But I was an ignorant, starry-eyed romantic who thought love would look like the fairytales and Disney movies and rom-coms I grew up watching. Pretty freakin’ obsessively, to be honest.

I never dreamed that anyone who ever claimed to “love” me would hurt me. Not this intentionally. But I was imposing my imaginary ideals onto real-life, like an ad projected onto the surface of Sky. I had to learn the tough lesson that my life just wasn’t going to go in that direction. I was such a fucking fool.

“Damon,” Clayton said. “Let me go. She ain’t worth it, dude. If you kill me, the dark agents are gonna take you instead.”

William was struggling to keep Levi in a guillotine choke when he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a butterfly knife. Then, without hesitation, began stabbing and slicing, avoiding his face and neck, and taking deliberate care to miss any vital arteries.

As Levi screamed in pain, it felt like relief — to me. I liked the sound of it, and I simultaneously began to despise myself for enjoying it — for taking pleasure in it. But I was enraged. And I wanted that little hobgoblin to suffer. Badly.

Unfortunately, Damon was nowhere near as careful as William…

But now, I wish William was less careful and finished the fucking job. The consequences would’ve been the same, anyways.

So, I guess, I’m a monster now, too.

But becoming a monster is the reason why I’m still alive. So maybe I am my father’s daughter, after all. Years of hating myself, my last name, my face, my looks, whenever I looked in the mirror. Oh, I despise how much I resemble him.

“I don’t give one fuck, Clay!” Damon said, after an uncharacteristic pause. “I don’t even give two fucks! I knew you were bad for her from the moment she introduced us.”

But at least I have my mother’s eyes.

“The green-eyed monster strikes again, huh?” Clayton said. “And you think you’re better for her, Dames? I’m telling you, bro! She ain’t fucking worth it! She’s a Black.”

“I’d do anything for her, Clay.”

“You’re a fucking fool then, bro. She’s the mayor’s daughter, bro! What makes you think she’s not gonna follow in her father’s footsteps? You ever think about that?!”

“All the freakin’ time, man!”

“Oh, so you like the idea?” Clayton taunted. “Should’ve known you were a fascist too. Y’all were meant for each other, then.”

“I’m willing to stand by her no matter what path she chooses.”

“You think she has a choice? Then you don’t know jackshit about the Default State. You’re just a simp in love with a fascist’s daughter. But if she were to get seeded — “

“Shut the fuck up,” Damon said. “I’ll show you how a seed gets fucking planted.”

I closed my eyes, because cruel words feel like stabs to the heart — especially when you’re hopped-up on Orange Bliss — but instead of pitch-black darkness, I was met with a kaleidoscopic vortex swirling in my mind’s eye. Like a colourful wormhole that I wanted to escape into. Gave me some semblance of comfort.

There was no more hope to be found when I thought about the future that awaited me.

I wanted to escape into that beautiful abyss then and there.

I wanted to escape. Anywhere. Anywhere but here. I wanted to become Absolute Infinity…

Even if it meant death. I began to wonder if all this horror I was experiencing existed inside of me. I began to wonder if the entire cosmos existed inside of me.

After all, if, as the Church says, we are all Absolute Infinity — God — why would God let this happen to me? Why would God put me in this position? If everything happens for a reason, what is the reason for all this trauma?

And if God is love, why is the world overrun by monsters?

Either God abandoned us or God abandoned reason.

Either way, my faith went down the drain that night — followed by my idealism and childlike wonder.

Maybe everything just happens, and we settle on justifications later.

“OH MY GOD!” Anila screamed as I opened my eyes again. She was still at the door, watching in horror, eyes aimed towards the balcony. “Damon! You just — “

“Oh fuck,” William said, rushing to the balcony, leaving Levi to bleed out, tending to his own wounds with his blood-soaked palms, beside my analog bookshelf. Out on the balcony, William attended to Damon who fell to his knees and broke down. His hands were trembling. His nose and lips were bleeding onto his torn shirt collar. His expression looked as if he had just seen the same psychedelic abyss I did, but didn’t fall into it either.

“Is he—” Anila said, her hands covering her mouth, as she began to sob. “Damon! Tell me you didn’t just do that!” William leaned over the balcony to see Clayton lying flat on the green turf. Then puked over the railing, in the same direction Clayton fell. “No, no, no… William! Tell me he’s alive! OH MY GOD!”

Fucking gravity…

Damon re-entered the dorm room and plopped his butt on the floor next to me, then leaned his head against mine. I mustered enough motor control to put my hand on his, an expression of gratitude as I still could barely speak.

Thank you…

He began to sob, too.

William re-entered the dorm room and looked at Anila, their expressions looked as if they felt the world was ending.

And, in a way, it was.

Just in a different way than nuclear.

“Anila,” William said, sniffling, wiping the residual vomit off his mouth. “You gotta go. You weren’t involved. The dark agents have no reason to take you.”

Anila covered her face with her hands and sobbed — every teardrop a tsunami — as she clued into what William was saying. Anila glanced at Damon and I, then at Levi, who was barely hanging onto consciousness, then walked right up to William for one last hug.

“I’m hugging you extra hard for the three of you,” Anila said. “Y’all were the best friends an orphan like me could ever dream of. Happy Graduation. I wish you all the best with your journeys into adulthood. I wish you all the best with the rest of your lives. May your lives be long, with minimal suffering.”

Once Anila left, we never saw her again… but that’s another story, for another time.

We all cried together as we waited for the dark agents to escort us out.

We all cried because we knew what went without saying…

That our lives — as we knew them — were fucking over.

Happy Graduation.

Image by author (Instagram: @williambluemusic // #csc_terraINCOGNITA)

⏭️ Chapter VII: Brass Monkey

Image by author (Instagram: @channelsurfcinema // #csc_terraINCOGNITA)

Terra Incognita is the upcoming debut novel by Canadian writer Jonah Angeles.

The story centers around special agent Parker Shiro, who is tasked with the undercover investigation of Aurum City, an isolated “smart city” located in the Californian desert — blocked off from the world by four gold walls and an artificial sky.

When an extraction mission goes wrong, Parker must find his own way back to the outside world, all while navigating an uprising that threatens to swallow the city up whole.

〽️〽️〽️

Book I: A Tale of Two Synchronicities will be released serially, chapter-by-chapter on Medium, then a digital release on Amazon, Kobo, and Gumroad.

The novel’s soundtrack is available to stream on Spotify and Apple Music.

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[embed]Terra Incognita (Soundtrack) by Jonah Angeles on Apple Music Listen to the Terra Incognita (Soundtrack) playlist by Jonah Angeles on Apple Music. 195 Songs. Duration: 12 hours 50…music.apple.com

🔖 Book I: A Tale of Two Synchronicities (all released chapters)

[embed]Terra Incognita (a Neon-Noir Sci-Fi Anthology) An anthology of tales from (or related to) Aurum City, a fully isolated smart city located in the Californian desert…medium.com