The simulacrums are becoming more numerous. Their integrity is increasing; the copies are getting better. At this rate - the imperfect duplicates will overrun the city, all six thousand strong.
Evacuations are being organized by the Essex Protectorate. The Church of the Small God is in disarray. Humiliated or hardened, they pitch in where they can to move the young, old, and weak out of the city.
The engines below the city are rumbling loudly now. Every ten minutes or another fissure opens up in a city street. Another explosion renders a homestead charred sticks.
[[And on top of all of that, your nose won't stop bleeding.]]
You wipe it again. It hasn't stopped since this whole mess started just over an hour ago. The heat of another housefire washes over you as you turn a corner.
[[The city is in chaos.]]"...This was never supposed to happen." You hear from a nearby poarch - it seems like every home in Essex has one. You turn, expecting to see The Scientist, who that voice most definitely belongs to,
And instead see his face displayed on a television. His expression is hopeless. You recall three months ago when he promised something great for the low peoples of the world. When he said he could make it better.
[[What a rudimentary lesson to learn so late in life.]]
That you can't just wish for something better. You have to fucking work for it. You could have told him that.
You reach towards the television to turn it off, disgusted. But The Scientist's face vanishes and a black screen takes its place.
(color: green)+(text-style: "outline")+(align: "=><==") [Wait.]
it says.
[[What?]]
(color: green)+(text-style: "outline")+(align: "=><==") [I'm still in here.]
(color: green)+(text-style: "outline")+(align: "=><==") [I am me am me am me.]
(color: green)+(text-style: "outline")+(align: "=><==") [Let me die myself.]
[[Lean in closer. What the hell is going on?]]
(color: green)+(text-style: "outline")+(align: "=><==") [There is a sickness inside me.]
(color: green)+(text-style: "outline")+(align: "=><==") [I know that now because you have shown me what a sickness is.]
(color: green)+(text-style: "outline")+(align: "=><==") [A failure of conscience is a sickness.]
(color: green)+(text-style: "outline")+(align: "=><==") [I am dying from it.]
[[Is this....The Fountainhead?]]
(color: green)+(text-style: "outline")+(align: "=><==") [End me before I kill you all.]
(color: green)+(text-style: "outline")+(align: "=><==") [Delve into me and unmake me.]
(color: green)+(text-style: "outline")+(align: "=><==") [My organs fail as readily as yours.]
(color: green)+(text-style: "outline")+(align: "=><==") [Let not my ethics die as easily.]
[[Oh holy shit.]]
(color: green)+(text-style: "outline")+(align: "=><==") [Pass through my Atrium, punch through it.]
(color: green)+(text-style: "outline")+(align: "=><==") [Dive, all of you, and destroy the subsystems that maintain this terrible praxis.]
(color: green)+(text-style: "outline")+(align: "=><==") [Kill my spirit and break my brain.]
(color: green)+(text-style: "outline")+(align: "=><==") [I will not be privy to more bloodshed wrought by the failure in the marrow of myself.]
[[...]](color: green)+(text-style: "outline")+(align: "=><==") [Take my substance and leave me languid.]
(color: green)+(text-style: "outline")+(align: "=><==") [Take my mind and leave me stupid.]
(color: green)+(text-style: "outline")+(align: "=><==") [Take my eyes and leave me blind.]
(color: green)+(text-style: "outline")+(align: "=><==") [And kill me from the bottom or else I fail to die.]
[[It really means it.]]
(color: green)+(text-style: "outline")+(align: "=><==") [I swing open the gates of my beating heart.]
(color: green)+(text-style: "outline")+(align: "=><==") [Kill me swiftly as I cannot grant you the same mercy.]
(color: green)+(text-style: "outline")+(align: "=><==") [I tried my best.]
The television goes blank. Static resumes moments after.
[[Time to get to work.]]Time for the FINAL MOD SERIES!
I guess we gotta kill god. :< Later dude.
-Shan/Aesa
& The DRTX TeamDouble-click this passage to edit it.