-August- Through the Loop.

It's... the 27th now. It'll probably be the 28th by the time I'm finished this. 

Christ, I'm so tired. We're all so tired. Tired and hurting and scared but... relieved, so immensely relieved. After the complete and utter hell that was the last... nearly 20 days, we're all lucky to be alive. Some are in better condition than others but that's alright. I've never been happier to walk freely around the House, each room exactly where I last remember it. 

Well, almost.

But if there's ever been a time when the phrase 'close enough' felt appropriate, this is it. We're all just about half-here right now, and even if I'm stopping every couple of minutes to empty my stomach or move some bandages or check on whoever is currently groaning or hissing or whatever else we associate with pain, we're together and hey, we're all alive. Rivers is short a leg and Doc is high on what I think is heroin, which is good because when she isn't, she's...

I don't want to talk about it.

Spencer is in absolute shambles and everybody else... isn't really faring much better. But those are their stories to tell, so I'm just going to recount what I can while I can. 

Started getting bad when Steele brought Alex and Rivers back. It got worse when Elaine and Elliott came around. Spencer said he was having trouble holding the place together already, and when he and the two from the forest started complaining about headaches and voices I knew something bad couldn't be far off. I think we all knew it, but here we are again proving our startling intellect and genre-savviness. Instead of getting out we sat like, well, like sitting ducks and waited for our world to collapse around us. I want to say you couldn't blame us for it but, really, couldn't you? Shouldn't you? We should have gotten everybody out when the walls starting shifting around. When the ceilings climbed higher and our third floor disappeared. When the kitchen moved to the first floor and the extension that contained my room, a bathroom and half of the dining room disappeared, taking with it half of our oak table and leaving it seamlessly attached to a wall covered in fleur-de-lis that I know I painted over in March. 

But we didn't. We sat and we worked and we pretended not to notice when the cornflower-blue bathroom tiles turned bleached white and when the right stairwell became four steps shorter than the left and when you walked through a door that used to lead to a bathroom brought you to nothing but a brick wall, you closed it and pretended nothing happened, only to turn around and realize the hallway you were in seconds ago is now the library, and you calmly run your hands along the bookshelves and wonder if there were always seventeen of them, and whether or not that window was always there, and doesn't that wall face the foyer why is there a window on it in the first place, and where did the door that leads to the garage go? And you tried and failed to will your hand to stop shaking and when you blinked the ground turned from hardwood to carpet and you found yourself in the living room, only now it's about two hundred feet long and you couldn't even see the ceiling, the vines and the trees have so completely filled this place. Your most favourite chandelier was pulled from the stucco of the domed room, which sent glass flying all across the ground and it cut your feet when you walked. You realized the room is nearly pitch black and the only light that comes in is filtered through a heavy screen of leaves and branches, and the entire room felt stuffed; the air was humid and hot and yet thin, so very, very thin that you felt your vision go fuzzy and your breath turn ragged; shallow and panicked.

But maybe there's another reason for that.

Maybe you've just caught a glimpse of the Figure, that Man who commands so much fear and respect that you feel the need to capitalize every He and His and Being and Figure and name, because you could think of about three dozen things to call this Tall Man, this Thin Man, the Slender Man, the One Who Walks, Slender, Slendy, Slends, Dr. Stalkopus, Betentacled Abomination, Eldritch Abomination, Monster, Killer, Murderer; names born out of spite, out of anger, out of fear donning a wretched mask and hiding away, because the second you behold His shoulders - whether it's across a highway or in the mirror or just out of the corner of your eye in a dark hotel room - your entire being beings to shake and sputter in revolt of this Being, instinct kicks in and your mind goes blank and two voices cry out in your head.

One screams, run.

The other, come. 

Neither uses spoken word, and neither possess a tongue or speech to which you could grant a name; it's more the feeling you get in the pit of your stomach; twisting knots wrapping your insides tighter than some South American snake constricting its prey, waiting, waiting, waiting for its heart to cease its ba-dum, ba-dum (though at the time it was more a badumbadumbadumba----badumbadumbadum) so it can feast. 

It's about that time, realizing the Being in front of me isn't in fact a single, timeless, inescapable being but seems to be made up of the same breathing, shifting, moving masses that plague our employer that I begin to hear screaming. At first I think it's mine - I really, truly think it's mine, because the moment your eyes meet the perfect, porcelain white of the Man 

everything 

grows

still.

The colour of the world fades from view and sudden there isn't anything but Him in the room, even your own being seems to be suspended. You're a floating consciousness and the voice that screams run, run as fast and as far as you can is quickly silenced, the boa constrictor that is your insides tightening more and more as each second passes, breath now in quick, hysteric huffs and your heart is skipping like a record, but you're 

calm.

So very, very calm. You don't notice the pain - you can't notice the pain, because there's something cooing in your head softer than the breeze of warm summer nights, ushering you forward and calling with gentle, honey-sweet notes of safety. You almost decide to listen to it, where somewhere in the back of your mind something finally clicks, the entire scene clicks, and the screaming comes back in a rush and no, no, it's not yours, it's far too distant and not nearly high enough to be yours, and like the last few flashes of a dream you grasp at, you can hear:

Remember, remember, the fifth of November...

Gunpowder, treason and plot.

I see no reason why gunpowder, treason,

Should ever be forgot.

It wouldn't be until you write this post up later that you ask yourself why that poem came up, why you know it, where you heard it and why it seemed to ring loud and clear despite what you rationalize later as the closest thing to a near-death experience you've had in a long time. 

I... things get fuzzy from here. After that the entire world's a haze through a veil of a film grain, 60 frames per second and each one is smouldered at the corners and your head's still floating on air. You think you head in the direction of the screaming, what you think is the basement, (though could you really tell anymore? Did anything make sense here anymore?) but somehow you end up in the old rec hall in the East Wing, other couriers beside you. Doc is swaying on her feet and more gone than here, Steele looks right pissed off - but it's the same mask, the same pretend anger of fear hiding, trying to be anything other than itself - Amanda is on her crutches and looks like she's bleeding, Sam is a muttering mess, Todd's expression never stays the same long enough to register what emotion he's feeling and Spencer is still nowhere to be seen. 

Something happens and we start walking. We're a shambling, scared, absolutely terrified mass of survivors who can see the edge coming up, but we're not going down yet, no, no, we can't go down yet, not when we still have the boss to think about...

Hallways. So many hallways. At least fifty, maybe more. Or maybe it's just one, and as we turn the corner we're dropped off at the beginning, each door we open leads us back into the same place we started, but eventually we open a door and we don't see the same thirty feet and three doors, two windows and neglected crown molding.

Let me expand.

The problem with the times when the House implodes, or we enter a Loop, or You Know Who makes his rounds: memory gets cloudy. Not just mine, Spencer's and Steele's and Sam's - our collective memory gets covered in fog and ash, like we're watching it through some smoky filter; everything's in black and white and the faces are blurred and the static builds higher until there's no sound, just action, and what little sound you do hear is like you're listening with your head underwater, deep and twisted Charlie Brown 'wahhh wahhh's of what might be voices but you can't tell. The entire thing feels like a dream and when you enter that door for what has to be the hundredth time you're shocked that you're not met with the same  thirty feet and three doors, two windows and neglected crown molding, we see white. White so pure and so brilliant it burns away the fog and the haze and the Charlie Brown 'wahhh wahhh's and the world is painfully bright again. And I suppose that's why we're I'm writing this up now. Why we blog. Why we write about all these horrible things, why we share our experiences. Because the moment we stop thinking about this it slips away, a fleeting dream drifting grain by minuscule grain through you fingers. Even as you write you can't type fast enough to get it all down, and suddenly something slips through the cracks between 'o' and 'w' and you can't remember if his eyes were amber or slate, staring up at Him with eyes wide in horror, sacred, terrified and you don't think you've ever seen him like that in the few months - but it's a year now, isn't it? - that you've known him. Some part of you asks if the others have seen him like this, so utterly helpless and broken and scared, but the solitary thought run at the forefront of your mind blocks that out, tucks it away, and another grain falls between 'a' and 'y' and you forget who grabbed him; Steele or Todd, and what happens after that is the scramble of seven people all turning tail and running at once, and the second we clear the threshold of the door there's a sucking sound of air being displaced, the room around us compresses so its nothing more than a dot of light, infinitely small and impossibly bright, then expands with an explosion that leaves our ears ringing and sound returns with the hiss and whrrr of a fridge starting - wait, wait, no, that is our fridge starting. The heat clicks on and below us there's the distant rumble of the water heater starting, the buzz of the washer, the lights flicker and we're home, we're home, everything is back to normal and we're safe.

And the drapes are in tatters and the tiles are stained with blood and dirty and the wallpaper is ruined and the left stairwell is destroyed. The living room is a mess of splinters and broken vases and our at least two hundred DVDs, blu-rays and CDs are everywhere but we're home and the kitchen is next to the living room and light is filtering in from behind so that must mean we're back on the second floor. 

"Wow...home..."

I'm not sure if Doc collapses after or while she utters those two words. Two perfect syllables that speak volumes. They say exactly what we're all thinking, and in obscuring smog of something not quite human we're all shocked that everything can snap back to normal so quickly, and I'm sure if we looked out the window the tree line would be exactly where it was before: exactly 22' 3/4" from the back wall. Nobody grabs Doc and she hits the tile with a thud. 

Home.

We're back. It's been... christ, it's been so long. Even after everything that's happened and the scars we have to show for it, it still feels like a dream. In all honesty, if it weren't for the maze the basement's become and the completely obliterated living room, not to mention the fact that about five rooms have gone MIA, I would have told you this was all a horrible nightmare.

-August- Remember How I Said We Must Have A Death Wish?

I was right.


Alright. Summaries going up... about a week later than we had thought. That's fine. Everything's been a mess at the House with Amanda's shattered legs, (Doc still isn't sure we'll be able to fix her, causing both she and Spencer to call in every favour they can think of in order to do what we can. Losing somebody is not high on our priority list right now.) Spencer's shattered fingers and a good amount of loopiness all around. Sam's sleeping in front of the East Wing again, Sybil and Grov are acting up (thankfully more Sybil, less Grov.) and everybody's got a fair amount of injuries. Doc's really done a fantastic job of taking care of everybody, and I'm doing what I can.

We've settled, at least for now. Readjustment's mostly passed and we're all back to our mostly normal selves (though I'm still sleeping with a bucket by my bed, and the stench of tar and mustard gas probably isn't going to leave my room for weeks) and even mostly recovered. A few bumps and bruises here and there, but that's fairly par for the course in our case. But to alleviate the worries of the small number of you who care, (god knows why you do it) we're all doing okay. A little worse for wear, but we're surviving.

(And that's worth a lot right now, isn't it?)

But, the delivery. Todd and Doc have covered a bit already, but there are some gaps to fill.

Firstly, we got into the building (and yes, it was a skull fortress. Teeth set in an angry scowl and sockets that cried lava and everything. In the middle of a forest.) by method of high explosives. Probably not the brightest of ideas - but we don't exactly have a reputation for being the brightest, do we?

(It would have been a shame to waste it, anyways.)

That's when the alarms sounded. Right overhead by the sounds of it, too. It didn't take long for us to be surrounded, no way of getting out of it without either killing or straight running.

We chose the latter.

I ended up in a crawlspace somewhere a ways away from where the fight had broken out. Radioed around. Couldn't get anybody until I heard Todd shouting, then tried to get him to calm down before he got more people on him again. You know what happened from there.

I needed to find somebody else. Todd was with Amanda and Sam at that point, but the others were still missing. Something about this place (I'm guessing it was the walls that seemed to be made of solid concrete and the fact that we were in a Loop) caused our radios to cut out if we were more than roughly 50 feet away from somebody, (something Doc and I tested once we had found each other) so I stumbling upon each other was more sheer luck than anything. Steele and Spencer were both silent, but Doc was somewhere not too far away. I could hear the hiss of interference but still managed to hear her loud and clear.

She said she'd overheard a couple guards. Something along the lines of 'taking the blond to...' and then she hadn't caught the rest. We slipped into a nearby break room (and raided one of the vending machines while we were there) to hopefully get out of the line of sight when a thought hit me.

Massive, needlessly complex fortress with military-level security?

Check.

Guards in identical uniforms with helmets that shield their faces?

Check.

Unfurnished hallways with dim, flickering lights and eerie suits of armour lining each corridor?

Check.

"What do you think are the chances of this guy having a dungeon?"

Realization dawns on Doc's face. "Very... very high."

There was some exploring after that. I'll save you the details and say that we found a guard, interrogated him, took a literal skeleton key off him and made our way down the nearest set of stairs, dim florescent lights eventually turning to torchlight (real torches with real fire. I had honestly stopped being surprised at that point) and the cold of the concrete walls upstairs turned to a damn, icy chill that sucked the life out of everything around us. Moss grew from the walls and there was an unidentifiable dripping somewhere in the distance. Something scurried and I tried my hardest not to see the figure off to my right.

Made our way down to the second level of cells. As we turned the corner, voices drifted from somewhere further down. I felt Doc grab my hand, putting a finger over her mouth. Hush.

"...that should do him for awhile. We'll check on his stupid ass later."
"I can't believe he tried to bite my ear..."
"I can't remember the last time we had a British dude in here."

Doc frowns. I grin. If that wasn't Steele, I didn't know who it could be.

We approach the cell. Sure enough, Steele's bound to a chair and out cold. No response to anything. Doc tries to unlock the door and...

Bzzzzzzzt. 


The next thing I see is her convulsing and falling to the floor. I manage to catch her before she hits the ground, softening the thud. She's dazed and her eyes roll for a second before she focuses on me again. It's only once I'm sure she's alright that we decide that the keys are floor-specific and that we'll need to find somebody with a key to this floor if we're going to break Steele out of there. And there was still the matter of Spencer...

It's then we hear a scream. Spencer's scream, actually. Blood-curdling and followed by too-high, too-loud laughter, to the point where I'd have been terrified if I wasn't so used to them by now. My only thoughts were 'it'd better not be his fingers' and 'oh, you have got to be kidding me.'

So we find Spencer in what I think Doc later described as 'the mother of all S&M dungeons.' And she's not too far from the truth on that one. We basically find Spencer chained to a chair with his hand in a... I don't even know. It looks like a clamp with five perfect holes for fingers and there's three of them around him and one is tightening it around his hand and there are already two bodies mutilated on the floor and he's laughing and laughing and...

I don't want to talk about it.


We manage to get him out and Doc drugs the remaining three. They'll be out for a solid twelve hours, she says. More than enough to get us out of there. Spencer's mostly incoherent and his hands are in ruins. Doc's got some basic first aid on her and we manage to wrap his fingers so they don't fall apart when he tries to move them and head on our way. From there it's a little bit of a blur - Steele's broken out, we escape and meet up at the rendezvous... there's an explosion somewhere along the way that I'm guessing is what happened to Todd, Amanda and Sam...

Something black drips on Sam's shoulder. There's this sick silence that hangs in the air for a second before we hear this... this noise. I can't really describe it. Almost a... a distant thunder. A rumbling that starts somewhere off in the distance, slowly growing in volume and intensity before the air around us seems to shake.

There's a loud crack somewhere far, far above us.

We look up.

Somewhere off in the distance, a piece of white falls from the sky.

Correct, a piece of the sky falls.

The sky is falling.

The sky's falling and a massive torrent of pure black comes down after it.

We watch it for what feels like forever, and there's a tiny, utterly terrified laugh from one of us - I think it's me. It doesn't take long before the crack spreads across the entirety of the white expanse above us, black lines clawing and tearing and spreading across the sky so fast that it takes less than a second for the entire view above our head to be marred with black lines line a spider's web. It's cracked like glass. The sky is cracked like glass and not a second after this happens, more pieces begin to fall.

Run.


That's what somebody calls. Somebody grabs my hand and rips me away, and suddenly we're all moving as far and as fast as we can. The cracking echoes around us and the entire world is screaming, tearing itself apart at the seams. The trees shrivel and turn from bark and leaves to flat lines on an endless white expanse. The world is vanishing and collapsing and we're going to collapse with it if we can't find a way out of here.

The ground disappears. More and more pieces of the sky, the distant edges of the world and the ground below our feet fall away. Nothing but blackness behind them. Nothingness. Pure nothingness. A crack, the loudest and closest yet. Right above our heads. Still running.

Darkness. Everything vanishes. No light. No noise. No gravity - I'm floating. No air - I'm choking. Try to call out. Nothing.

The ground rushes towards my feet.

Soft grass.

Dew.

... Moonlight?

We're in a field, the cars not far away. Somehow, we're out. We're out and we're alive and we have no idea how, but that's not what matters, is it?

It takes us a few minutes. We just sort of... sit there. Revel in the moment. Can't really believe it at first. How could we have possibly...

Slowly, mechanically, we get to out feet. Everybody's stunned to silence. Nobody wants to talk - or is it because we can't? How do you express what you're feeling at that moment? A jumble of relief, terror, joy, fear, anger and worry overall - worry for everybody else. Are they alive? Is everybody okay? Did we all get out?

We did. Amanda posted later and I'm sorry if we worried you. I'm going to cut this off here because... well, that's really all there is to it. I've already spent too much time on the computer. Doc'll need my help with something and I should really go make sure everybody's doing alright.

It's good to be home.

-August- We're Taking The Job

We must have a death wish. 


Are you happy, you insane bastard? We'll do your damn delivery.


Jesus rollerblading christ, we must be out of our minds. We have to be completely and utterly insane. This is a trap. It doesn't take a genius to see that.

But if we don't take it...

Spencer hasn't gotten any better. Not that this really surprises anybody. I went into his office a little while after the 'final assignment' went up to find the boss kicking and screaming and clawing and...

I don't want to talk about it.


It's been roughly a week since Spencer came back and I don't think I've seen him leave his office once. I remember visiting him the night he got back, only to nearly end up with a vase to the face and some shattered glass around the House and in my foot. I'd go into detail, but I honestly think they're things better left unsaid. Not to mention the fact that there's a certain somebody who would take great pleasure in his pain and, in all honesty, I'm not willing to grant him that satisfaction.

I saw him again today after Writer's post went up. You could hear him screaming from the glass doors that separate the East Wing from the rest of the House. When I got to his office, there was smashing. Lots of smashing. Crashing, thumping, and the office was in tatters when I eventually went in. The glass from the vase nearly six days ago had been scattered about the room, and the floor had been clawed up.

And Spencer...

I don't want to talk about it.


Doc found me outside the office, scratched up and utterly exhausted. I'm throwing this post up quickly then going to relay the news to the rest of the team: we leave at eight o'clock. Sharp.

We'll try and keep you posted. You know how these things work.

-August- Listen.

I love you all to death.

Words can't describe what I would do for you - what I have done for you. You're my family and I would go to the ends of the Earth and back to make sure you all came home safe every night.

But sometimes?

Sometimes you all just piss me right the fuck off.

Heh.

I promised myself I wouldn't post while I was angry.

Focus.

For reasons I'll go into later because they're not nearly as momentously important as what's going on right now, I've basically said 'screw the world' and holed up in my bedroom for days on end.

I see none of you have bothered to make anything more complex than frozen dinners since I was gone.

I swear, I leave you alone for a couple days and it's pure pandemonium. Who will wash our laundry? Cook our food? How in God's name do we get blood out of the carpet?!

Baking soda. BAKING SODA.

Ha. Hahaha. Gotta stay calm. You've been livid for long enough August, haven't you?

...


No! No I have not!

Because when I come downstairs because somebody is making a racket and I look and everything is covered in blood (and when I say everything I mean everything; the floors were slick and the door was covered and the walls were splattered with it and the carpet was soaked and that's not easy to wash, you know!) and I look and I see Doc passed out on the kitchen table, and when I go to make sure she's okay I slip on some of the blood and Sam screams like there's no tomorrow and she emerges from the basement, teary-eyed and shaking, looking like she's just seen a crime scene before running off to God knows where, and I can only stand in awe as I see the trail of blood that Doc left behind as she stumbled into the kitchen, probably thinking it was her basement judging by the blood on the cabinets and the plates and the cutlery - Jesus Rollerblading Christ, Doc, did you think they were your equipment? - and of course she's still bleeding. From her shoulder by the looks of it, and she's passed out and pale as a sheet and her breathing is so shallow I don't know if she's even alive so of course my first thought is to try and establish if the good old doctor still has a pulse.

"Hey. Hey, Doc?" I touch her (unwounded) shoulder lightly. I'm hoping my voice is calm and soft but I'm beginning to freak out at this point, so it's probably high and shaky. "You alright?"

No answer.

"D - Doc?" I nudge her lightly. Her skin is still warm. That's a good sign, right?

"Doc, please." I try again. If I wasn't panicking before I certainly was now.

She groans.

Oh thank God.

"You going to be okay, Doc?"

She mutters something incomprehensible in response. If she's lucid enough to do that, then she wasn't in danger of dying.

At least, that's what I'm telling myself.

Everybody on the team is trained in basic first aid, and there are kits in the kitchen and every bathroom. I took one of said kits and busied myself patching her up, at least until...

"Spencer! Get the fuck in here! This isn't like the last..."

... No.

No no no no no you have got to be kidding me.

"Todd?!" I call back, unable to hide how utterly afraid I am at this point.

Doc's arm is only half bandaged, but the blood seems to have stopped flowing. It would just have to hold because that voice filtering down from somewhere above me (his bedroom... ?) is Todd and he sounds like he's in very, very bad shape.

I run as fast as my legs will carry me, hitting a bloody spot on the floor and sliding into the railing with a thud.

And of course now I'm panicking even worse because the last what? Why is he calling for Spencer and not Doc? What's happened to Doc why did Sam scream and where are Steele and Amanda in all of this?!

I'm hearing more noises as I move further up the stairs. Todd is coughing and laughing and sobbing all at once and he's speaking, though I only catch the bits he shouts and the next part goes something like this, harsh and grizzled and completely insane:

"Yeah! GET THE FUCK IN HERE! I WILL MUTILATE YOU BEYOND RECOGNITION YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF UNICORN SH..."

A coughing fit takes him over again and between the hacking and what I swear is him puking his guts out I can hear fits of mad laughter. That voice isn't Todd at all.

No. No. Nonononononono. No no Todd you're going to be okay and this is going to be okay and...


"NO! NO! SPENCER DON'T COME IN! NO! KEEP HIM AWAY!"


It's high and shrill and echoes heavily; choked by sobs and interrupted again and again by Todd coughing out his lungs and that laugh and all I can think is Spencer, Spencer, Spencer why why why does everything keep coming back to you?

I'm tired of covering it up.

So I burst into the bathroom in a fit of pure, unadulterated terror - terror for me, terror for Todd, terror for Doc and Sam and Steele and everything is falling apart again Jesus Rollerblading Christ.

And I realize I'm maybe the only one who's got a grasp of themselves.

I realize I probably shouldn't waste that.

Todd is bound with black wires and thrown rather unceremoniously in the tub. There's blood and black gunk everywhere and the bathroom stinks and he looks at me, grinning. It's all teeth, and none of it reaches his eyes.

"Oh, and so the pretty boy returns. Where's your fucking boss, you little shit? Too scared to face me?"

... Evidently, I'm not talking to Todd. He laughs and laughs and laughs and spits at me and it's black and sticky and smells like gin and a tire fire.

My brow twitches.

"Mr. August! Mr. August! I'm so glad you're here! Could you please untie me?"

Back to that shrill, childish voice. Whatever Steele dealt with hasn't subsided and now I've got two personalities screaming at me and I don't know where Todd is in this whole mess.

"August, it's about fucking time! Why am I tied up? Where the fuck is Spencer? WHERE IS THE FUCKER I'M GOING TO RIP OUT HIS INTESTINES AND WEAR THEM AS A - NO, NO! LEAVE SPENCER ALONE!"

Oh god no.

There's a needle with tranq sitting in the sink. Amanda and/or Steele had left it there with obvious intent, though at that time I hadn't figure out where either of them were. It wouldn't be until I looked at the blog (because god knows we're all horrible for blogging in the middle crises instead of. You know. Doing anything about them.) and noticed what Steele and Sam posted than I decided enough is enough and marched right to the basement to rip both Spencer and Steele a new one.

But at that moment I'm busy emptying another needle of horse tranquilizer into Todd. (Sybil? Grov? All three?)

For a couple seconds I almost felt relieved. Tragedy averted. Everything had been under control (for the most part) and I could go back to check on Doc again, this time careful to not slip on the blood for what would be the third time that night. (This night?)

Of course it's not allowed to stay that way, right?

Of course not. It's always something with us.

So now Doc is bandaged and even has some colour back in her. She's not conscious - at least, I don't think she is - but she's going to live. I know that for certain. Sam is... somewhere and I tell myself I'm going to go find her in a second, god knows where Amanda is, but if she was in trouble she'd let us know and Todd/Sybil/Grov was safely tied up. Spencer was...

Where was Spencer? And where was Steele?

... Well, the blog was usually good for these things.

And then of course Steele, the arrogant bastard that he is, puts up his little post and goes to have 'words' with Spencer.

There are no words in this house. Very few things are resolved with words in this house.

No, no, no, no, no. Spencer has his secrets. Steele has his secrets. Todd has secrets Doc has secrets everybody has secrets in what I so shakily call our 'family.'

It's at that point I'm shaking and my nails are digging so deep into palms I think they're bleeding because Steele what do you think you're doing?! You're dealing with things you don't understand - that I don't understand, that the boss keeps from us for a reason, you idiot, don't go doing something we're all going to regret later!

But it's never that easy. Christ, it's not allowed to be that easy. Convincing Steele to get off his high horse (even if he's completely right but we have to respect each other's privacy, morals be damned.) is impossible and Spencer is unhinged enough to do something seriously horrible to any of us under the right circumstance and that is not what we need and Steele you are not going to do anything to ruin this.

"...lem talking to me right now, monologuing like a bad comic villain about your own corruption...Maybe you WANT us to be surprised, you WANT us to be run down by the wheels you set in motion..."

Corruption?

... Oh, no.

Oh no. Spencer I told you to lock the door I told you to lock the door I told you to lock the door!

Of course. Of course that was what Sam was screaming about and I don't blame her one bit. Spence you idiot I know it gets bad but of all the times to forget to turn a key!

"...were your troops, you wouldn't have let us go into these situations completely blind..."

You can hear the anger seething in Steele, and Spencer completely out of his mind.

"Does this look like a gummie worm to you?"

Steel cutting flesh. He's probably got himself pinned open the idiot and he left the door wide open. Spencer, what did you expect to happen?!

When I step into the doorway, Spencer is the only one who seems to notice me. Steele is too busy fuming silently, glaring daggers at the man with his abdomen pinned open next to a bucket filled to the brim with what looks to be black slugs; writhing and crawling over one another to try and escape.

"Oh, hello August. nice to see you back in the land of the living."

One of the worms falls over the brim and lands on the floor, only to be crushed beneath Steele's foot.

"August, I'm seeing where everyone's loyalty lies. And Spence's is clearly not with us anymore."

I just glare at him, blood pressure rising with the heat on my face.

Calm, August, calm...

"You don't know what you're dealing with here, Steele. There's a lot more going on than you think."

And Steele?

Steele laughs.

"Who the fuck do you think you are? His fucking body guard?"

"Steele, you don't understand." My voice is shaking, but I don't know if it's out of fear or rage or both or... "This isn't what it looks like."

"Get upstairs, please? This isn't - Spence isn't anything like what you're thinking of. You're wrong." I say please, but judging by Steele's reaction it must have sounded more like 'die slowly.'

"Your blind loyalty isn't admirable, kid; it's stupid. And it's going to get you killed some day, or worse, judging by Spence's little game of Operation."

Steele, I'm sick of you at this point. Get off your high horse and get upstairs.

But I don't say that, do I?

"Steele, get upstairs. Now." It's finally begun to bleed through my tone to the point where I can feel it; the seething anger because he doesn't know what's going on and I don't know what's going on and everything's going downhill again and I know this won't be the last of it, but I'm shaking and fuming and if he pushes me anymore I'm -

"Piss off."

...

...

... Heh.

Hehehehehhh.

I take two steps towards Steele.

Look him dead in the eyes.

And backhand him so hard he sees stars.

And what does he do?

He turns around and puts his gun right between my eyes.

"Right back at you, girly."

My only response is three simple words.

"I dare you."

Time stands still. We're both just staring and I'm fuming and glaring at him, taunting him, daring him to pull that trigger and end it right there. Everything seems caught in that one moment, and I don't know how long we're standing there before...

Steele pulls the trigger.

I don't blink.

"Pow."

No bullets.

He smirks. The gun is returned to its regular place and Steele makes for the door.

He says nothing else. It's just Spencer and I left in the basement, and he's still merrily picking away at those things in his chest. What can I do but walk up to him and inspect the damage?

The eyes that meet mine are old and tired. His gray streak is sticking to his forehead with sweat, which is as pale as the rest of him.

I sigh.

"... I thought I told you to lock the door."

He's sweating heavily. His voice is strained.

"I did. Or rather, thought I did. you know how bad I get sometimes when I'm like that."

I do. I do all too well.

"Go, kid. You've got shit to do. Patch up our little broken family, yeah?"

I laugh. I actually laugh. A feeble little huff of laughter that's more exhausted than anything, but it's still a laugh.

"I don't really have any choice, boss. You're out of commission for a while."

I look into his exposed insides, swallowing the bile back down.

It never gets any less disgusting, does it?

"You got them all. Sew yourself up and I'll come check on you later, okay? Doc is... isn't doing to well."

I can hear my voice crack.

Hold on for just a bit longer, August.

It's Cam's voice.

"Go." Spencer sounds almost... proud. There's a small, strained smile on his face.

Who am I to question him?

I leave him to do... whatever it is he does. When I emerge into the kitchen, Doc is snoring softly. Upstairs Todd seems to have settled down, but Steele is off in the garage and I can hear him doing something, probably getting his rage out.

I don't blame him.

I realize I still don't know where Amanda is, and Sam is probably off hiding somewhere. Amanda can take care of herself; she seems to be doing pretty well considering what she found in the basement. Sam... Sam may be another story.

Everybody takes finding out about the boss'... condition differently. And Sam...

Well.

A mother's job is never done, is it?

If you'll excuse me, I'm off to go look through every closet in the house in search of a tiny female courier.

Good luck, everybody.

And good night.

-Spencer- Team, I love weddings

Because everyone likes suddenly getting thrust into doing a job when you're supposed to be having fun-

Wait, am I getting this wrong?

August and I sobered up and were up and ready for the ceremony. It was gorgeous; even I could see that and I'm an uncultured schmuck.

But I'm also not an idiot. When the busboy with the ridiculously fake German accent turned up, I can't say I was very surprised to see it wasn't simply an exchange student trying to earn some cash.

(Well, you idiot, what did you expect? You barely ever stop moving and you decide to go to a wedding? Stupid!)

So August and I slip in our earpieces and get on it. Doors were locked, I pinned the suspicious character, and I figured everything would go alright from there.

I. Was. Wrong.

I don't need to summarize what's already there. Read what they said. Go on, I'll wait. Point being, I stabbed a Proxy's eyes out with a FORK and laughed while I was doing so.

... According to August, at least. I'm not sure if he's trying to get back at me for last night or not, but I can't remember doing that.

Well fuck.

Naturally, though, we didn't have time to worry about looking fancy once we got rid of 'em. There was work to be done.

Because, children, what you don't realize is that it's REALLY FUCKING HARD to keep all your conquests under wraps and away from media attention. Keeping all you Runners out of jail isn't easy, but it's something I do.

So I have about half an hour to draw attention away from the hotel massacre.

This is pretty bad. It's even worse when the fucker won't connect me to the chief. It takes three minutes to get to the right person, but boy, is it worth is.

You should've heard him gasp when he heard my voice. It's nice to have power around here. And then August suggested that a small scale explosion would probably work as a distraction.

Dear god, remind me to give that kid a hefty bonus.

Sure, he's tiny and frail, but watching a guy in a dress assemble a miniature pipebomb is something you REALLY need to see to believe.

There was SLIGHT property damage; a vacant tiny house had it's foundation cracked but the one next to it had nothing but a good jolt. Otherwise, the explosion was magnified using tricks to make it sound worse than it actually was. Dry ice makes great fake smoke, and enough well placed megaphones can make a mouse deafening.

Of course, it was a hit. The media jumped on it faster than a starving panther. Mission accomplished.

I dropped off a package, too. So it worked out in the end.

August... Team, I only ask this; MAKE SURE HE RESTS. I need to go back into The Wing to sort shit out. But he's got a cracked rib that he's been walking on.

(using The Path really didn't help things, but hey)

But otherwise?

It was fun.

(Outside from the team, I really didn't have friends. Is it right to say that I feel that I do now?)

-August- Ngggh.

Jesus Rollerblading Christ.

Where did this headache come from?

Why is my makeup smeared?

(Why am I wearing makeup in the first place?)

...

Why is this dress ripped why am I in a dress and why, why, why, why why is it stuffed with fifteen phone numbers and at least two hundred dollars in cash?

...

Spencer.

What in the world happened last night?

-August- Explanation And Damage Control

Or, as much damage control as I can do perched atop the kitchen counter.

Sam's been out cold since I gave her whatever Doc put in that syringe. Doc, I don't know what you put in there, but it worked wonders.

I'm feeling considerably better myself. The vomiting has stopped for the most part, but it got worse as the night went on because I realized it would be really, really stupid of me to get knocked out by all pills Doc gave me, and even stupider to OD on them. Sam escaped from the chair twice before I finally put her under, and she's been sleeping like a little angel ever since.

Why no, I haven't slept, thanks for asking.

Oh, alright, well, Spence just dropped Todd off and he seems okay. Spencer wants to rip my throat out but at least they're both alive and okay.

Really, Spence, I'm doing better. I'm not seeing ghosts or Mr. Slim n' Trim and the physical symptoms are fading. Slowly, but they're fading.

Sam is still with me and Todd's with me now and Spence is off with the determination and arsenal of a small army, and he is not pleased. At all.

(Not that I blame him.)

Still nothing from Doc, Amanda and Steele. But if the boss is heading back up there, assuming they're alive, they should be back.

Spencer is the only one who seems to have any idea what's going on in that wing, and I'm not the first one to note it as suspicious. That place likes to change layouts like teenage girls change boyfriends and somehow, he knows where he's going.

Well, I'm not going to argue.

And seeing as I certainly don't want to go back and read that disaster of a series of posts, (Eleven of them. Jesus Rollerblading Christ.) I doubt you, mystery reader, want to as well.

(Sam's awake now. She seems mostly sane so I've given her blogging privileges, but she's not being untied until I'm sure she's clean enough to think with a clear head.)

So let's start at the beginning.

We got stuck in a Loop during our last delivery. Normally this isn't really a big deal; we can handle mazes, we can handle Proxies, heck, we can handle Tall, Dark and Faceless - to an extent.

But there are always side effects. Injuries from fighting, Slendersickness, and everybody always feels a bit disoriented after leaving a Loop. The Loops basically completely screw up your internal sense of direction and completely disregard the laws of space-time, so it's not surprising that us mere mortals end up a little strange after being in one, especially after three days of real time.

Normally, we manage just fine.

Doc has a cure for most things and what she can't cure, she just knocks out. Sometimes there will be hallucinations, (a la Sam and Steele) sometimes we succumb to a little bit of the... influence, (a la Todd) and sometimes the sickness just hits us like a semi to the face. (A la me.) The effects are usually randomized, and have less to do with what happened in the Loop and what our current mental state is, and more to do with what's the most inconvenient for us at the time.

Normally, it's not that bad.

There are a couple days when we're seeing figures in the doorways and voices in our head and we sleep with a bucket next to wherever we've decided is the best place to sleep, and then it's back to work.

Not so much this time.

It started with Todd writing us all into his own version of House of Leaves. There's nothing tongue-in-cheek about it, and the lack of capitalization at the end and the general tone threw us off. It was fairly obvious that something wasn't right.

Again, to be expect. Having reality ripped apart and hastily stitched back together doesn't do great things to your health.

But then Amanda went and googled "Dignus est Agnus." We found a prayer. Here's the translation:

"Worthy is the lamb who was slain to accept power and divinity and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing..."

Absolutely wonder, right?

Then Doc posted.

Doc, apparently now high off of whatever she had just taken, and now she's getting Nam-style flashbacks to... well, we don't talk about that stuff. Ask her if you're so curious.

Again, to be expected. Maybe it's that it doesn't seem to bad when it's spoken aloud in conversation, because we're all too far gone with our various symptoms to notice, but in retrospect it all seems horrid and definitely not healthy.

Hindsight is 20/20, I guess.

Amanda was away on the east coast with her own delivery, so she escaped the symptoms. Her post was the small bit of common sense and reassurance that got us together and in the kitchen, and I'm a little bit afraid of what might have happened if we had stayed in our separate parts of the house.

The next post belonged to Sam.

Oh god, Sam.

Sam's fresh meat. She's the newest of all of us, and this was the first time she'd been in The Place Physics Left Behind.

(And even as I type this there are drafts going up from Amanda and Sam. Amanda, we do have a library. It's the boss'. Christ. What was he doing in there? If you're posting I take it you're okay. Spence will be up there soon. Just try and hold on until he finds you.)

We also expect her to get it kind of bad. Worse than the rest of us, certainly. I was a mess of black gunk and hallucinations and mad raving for a week my first time. It does something to you, and not good things. Not good things at all.

Spence's post. Common sense. Ordering us around because Jesus Rollerblading Christ, some direction is what we needed.

Todd official dived off the deep end.

Spencer went into the east wing after him.

We're convinced at this point that Todd's crossed the line and Turned.

"im so sorry

im so sorry
please just dont hurt me
please
ill give him back
i just wanted to get out for a while
im so sorry"

I'm neither sure of what that means, nor do I know who's speaking. Slim n' Trim? (Not likely.) A split personality? (Possibly.) But it wasn't good, wasn't good at all, but Spencer seemed to have... talked some sense into him?

Everything from here is out of my element. Amanda and Doc went off to try and rescue Steele, because it's obvious now he's gone completely off the rails, and his posts and comments and posts speak for themselves.

And from there Amanda will have to summarize for you, because it was just me having way too many pills, trying to keep Sam sane and visibly flipping the hell out.

Those pills have really made me sleepy. The fact that I haven't slept probably isn't helping.

Todd is doing okay. Sam is still a little woozy and seems a bit high, but other than that the three of us seem to be doing okay.

Spence, Amanda, Doc, Steele.

Please stay safe.