Part 8
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# Dead End Shrine Online
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=> p1.html Part 1
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=> p2.html Part 2
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=> p3.html Part 3
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=> p4.html Part 4
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=> p5.html Part 5
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=> p6.html Part 6
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=> p7.md Part 7
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=> p8.html Part 8
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=> mods/index.html Mods
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=> few/index.html The FEW 99.9% Completion Guide
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=> gemini://gemini.deadendshrine.online Gemini
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=> http://127.0.0.1:8888/USK@3igGCjaVr8BNYRhuRka8BA50089XeH-uOq1~m8FZ5KQ,pzggo6unfI9aZTSYJvimOyFFuQAQwrPYxpnbHN8k~L4,AQACAAE/deadendshrine/-1/ Freenet
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=> http://blapi36sowfyuwzp4ag24xb3d4zdrzgtafez3g3lkp2rj4ho7lxhceid.onion Tor (HTTP)
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=> gemini://blapi36sowfyuwzp4ag24xb3d4zdrzgtafez3g3lkp2rj4ho7lxhceid.onion Tor (Gemini)
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=> http://2a55el42cobuxtls7iv6eoimejocybdekwnnaefcn4u2f5eydela.b32.i2p I2P (HTTP)
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=> http://yggdrasil.deadendshrine.online Yggdrasil (HTTP)
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=> ipns://deadendshrine.online IPFS
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> Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me. I am who I am, doing what I came to do...
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>
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> - Audre Lorde
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There was once a girl freshly turned woman who spent her days in the corner of whatever room she lived in. Her bedroom, the room she bunked in at her grandmother's house, her college dorm room. She would spend her time staring into screens, hoping for a vestige of one of her friends. The friends from half the world away? The friends from lives past, so very very long ago? Nobody knows. She would touch the screens, touch-enabled or not, leaving behind fingerprints and half-whispered words.
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*I miss you!*
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*I... miss you.*
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*I miss...*
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There was once a man named Ghost. A cabal of friends surrounded him: Kamui, Robin, and others on the periphery. Each with their own yearnings for the people of lives past, some thinking that maybe they'd get lucky and find the reincarnates in this one. Ghost accepted our young protagonist into the fold as college began and she tasted for the first time a life outside of her parents' purview. A fast friendship bloomed between her and the group.
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Our Lucine. Our Luce. Can we trust you with the truth?
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She would wake up every morning with blood on her hands. Messages of wrath and filth sent to her friends under disguises, aliases, complaining about the protagonist herself. Her friends rallied around her, gave her support and encouragement. Ghost even promised, after five years of preparation, he would drive across the country to pick her up and whisk her away and she could live with him. She could start a new life over with him.
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But little by little, Ghost and friends discovered that it was her hands, if not her, at fault for the messages. Our protagonist tried to apologize, tried to explain that she wasn't in full control of herself, tried to make amends and plans to mitigate any damage in the future in case she couldn't make it stop. Which should have been an adequate response, right? The reincarnated daughter of a god of chaos and destruction, died in unwitting service to him, bonds still strong across space and time? One would not think it such a big stretch for a group of dissociative systems and polymorphs and self-proclaimed starseeds.
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But they kicked her out. Cut off all ties with her. Spat on the memory of her.
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And a light cracked in through the window where before had only been the murky black of night past the heavy college dorm room curtains. The morning after disaster. The surveying of the wreckage. The first displaced piece put back, the first moment of rebuilding a sense of self.
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*Other people's cruelties do not define what I am.*
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There was once a girl still blooming into a woman who spent her days hunched over a computer screen. Several years since being called Lucine. Still reeling in the grief of another year come and gone. Still bearing a name starting with an L and ending with an E. But this one bearing the mark of forgetfulness, of forgiveness, of holding no grudges and keeping no lists.
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Our Tsukai. Our Lethe. Come build a world named Sablade with me?
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There was once a man without a name. I hesitate to give him one, being that there were none resembling a name he regularly used. He wished to go by a distorted name of a computer program. A ghost in the wires, a ghost in the shell of a website half-finished and painful at best to read. He contacted our protagonist one day with butter and sugar, and an unlikely friendship formed between them.
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It took a while for the bloodlust that had so quickly plagued Ghost and Kamui and the rest to reawaken in our protagonist. They spent long hours into the night chatting with each other, talking of their separate lives an ocean away. She slowly, then with great force, trusted him with the minutae of the world gestating inside her and the details of the lover with which she would midwife it into existence. He wanted to send her money to help, begged her to give him a cryptocurrency address to send it to her, even at one point had the audacity to ask for her legal name to dispense with the crypto and wire it to her directly.
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But she remembered Ghost, and she remembered the wrath Ghost had displayed in their final moments together, and she refused to give this new man anything he could use to harm her with.
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He showed her his friends, wanted to make her a part of his regular group. But she was appalled at what she saw, the cruelty so inherent to the male sex. Even after convincing him to chastise his friends into a semblance of acceptable behavior, she was a slot fitted into the wrong hole, a computer part plugged into the wrong port, a black sheep. Even then, she stayed, tried to make things work, tried to banter, tried to learn their language, resorted to silence whenever blood ran cold.
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But she remembered Ghost, and she remembered the wrath Ghost had displayed in their final moments together, and so when the bloodlust came she restrained herself to the banter and to spamming Kanye West-themed copypastas. Nothing that would stain her guilt. Everything was going well, she thought. Jokes about her taking a trip to his home country, to her sleeping in his basement, to her doing drugs with him.
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But what is one supposed to do with a man who continually makes unwanted romantic gestures despite having been told no, I'm a lesbian, I'm in a committed relationship? With a man who grew up in a completely different cultural zeitgeist and speaks only of things one has no interest in? Who has no qualms over pulling out slurs when they suit him?
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Here are my boundaries. Please do not trespass over them.
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And never forget that *you* asked *me* to be here, not the other way around.
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And in one messy fight, they kicked her out. Cut off all ties with her. Spat on the memory of her.
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And a light cracks in through the clouds where before had only been the overcast spread of a gloomy weekend. The hours after disaster, the kind one watches looming over the horizon and cannot do anything to stop. The surveying of the wreckage. The keeping of a list of what is unsalvageable and needs to be thrown out, what needs to be repaired, what walls must be fortified for the next time.
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The promise that there will be no "next time".
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*Other people's cruelties do not define what I am.*
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"Time is a circle which nobody can stop-"
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"-But you and I found a dead end the gods forgot to seal off." Jett takes my shoulder, spins me around where I stand so that I face her. There are dark splotches under her eyes like she hasn't slept properly in a few days. "That's how the poem goes, last I checked." She doesn't wait for my affirmation as she continues, "You're in just as rough shape as I am."
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"It's the Eschaton. Bad things are *supposed* to happen to me. Remember?"
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"Oh, that...? Took you long enough." A barely-contained snicker. "Puts a whole new meaning on 'kin', doesn't it?"
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"Yeah. I'm..." I straighten myself, put my hands on my hips. "I'm the Chaos Kin! The Konton no Tsukai! And I eat gods and destroy societies and cause eventual ruination to everything I love!"
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This last fact I recite with no ounce of guilt in my voice.
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"You say this like it's news or something." She averts her gaze. "I went to a wedding today. One of my friends from college. I didn't know them well, and I wasn't keen on skipping classes. But I thought it-" the next words are more difficult for her to get out- "it would be good practice for when I finally get to take you home."
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Take me home!
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Take me home!
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*I'll be waiting here, faithfully, for you to take me home.*
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<!DOCTYPE html>
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<html lang="en">
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<head>
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<meta charset="UTF-8">
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<title>Part 8 - Dead End Shrine Online</title>
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<meta name="author" content="Lethe Beltane">
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<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
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<meta name="description" content="We love you, Lethe!">
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<meta http-equiv="onion-location" content="http://blapi36sowfyuwzp4ag24xb3d4zdrzgtafez3g3lkp2rj4ho7lxhceid.onion/p6.html" />
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<link href="./style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" title="main" media="all">
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<link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="./jett_sigil.png">
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</head>
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<body>
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<p>"So what are your plans for today?" echoes in my head as I lay down for a nap, probably the third of the day. Who is keeping score? A familiar voice, the voice of my wife, likely unaware I can hear her in this small sliver of time as she walks down an equally sunny sidewalk in her college campus.</p>
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<p>"I am going to bite your wife," answers a lower voice, "and turn her into a vampire."</p>
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<p>"Not if I do it first!"</p>
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<p>A cold hand gently lifting my neck up. Two distinct pinpricks on the right side of my neck. A body flooding into view a few seconds later. A familiar flattened chest, blue-black plumage, fluffy mass of dark purple hair brushing against my ear.</p>
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<p class="blink1"><em>My wife is here!</em></p>
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<p class="blink2"><em>My wife is... here!</em></p>
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<p class="blink3"><em>My wife...</em></p>
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<p>I did not become a vampire. Did not receive yet another strain of blood in the coitus that followed. And neither was that her intention. But every night following, the rivers in my veins burned from whatever Jett had slipped in to protect me, a itch right under the skin only alleviated by allowing myself to shift and go feral in my draconic form. Some nights the ribbons loosened from my limbs and I returned to rationality to find I had killed someone, a family member or someone who had wronged me or even just a complete stranger. Some nights I was overcome with cowardice, fleeing into the forest or hiding underneath a blanket in the living room of my grandmother's house.</p>
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<p>A place now defiled, desecrated, with no clear path to becoming safe again.</p>
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<p>A bad setup to a cliche dream. My parents have invited the friend of one of my brothers to come play while the rest of us help tear down the old shed in the backyard. Except that this friend has made it very clear that he hates me, that he would sexually assault me if he could, that he would kill me in a heartbeat if given the chance. Someone who hates me for who, <em>what</em>, I am with no recourse. I attempt to explain to my parents why this person is a danger, but they refuse to listen, insisting that he is just as welcome in the house as I am.</p>
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<p>I find myself running away early in the morning without an explanation. Taking off with very few, if any, possesions, the rest left behind and tucked away hidden in a closet with the understanding that, if I come back, they may all be stolen or shattered or both. Refuge found in a safe place nobody else in my family knows about: Independence Park, hill and playground and baseball field and winding bike paths one could easily get lost in.</p>
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<p>I collapse on the hill, curling up, trembling from the strain of so much sudden physical exertion so early in the day. The same place, give or take a few feet, that I sat in a little under six years ago the day I published <em>The Samhain Files</em>. I let my gaze wander to the clouds, the infinite blue sky beyond. My eyes ache. Visual snow like meteors and worms, like the ribbons that wrap around my limbs right before the light takes me to shift. But although my blood burns to do so, to disappear into the woods without a trace, I am sitting firmly in "consensus reality". There is a Veil over everyone and everything. I have not even the simple luxury of my wings to cocoon myself in as I lie on the soft grassy hill, half-delirious from a whole two hours of sleep.</p>
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<p>I awake about fifteen minutes later from a buzzing in my purse. My mother has finally decided to take my concerns half-seriously and has taken down all of the photos of me in the house. My father follows close behind, admonishing me for daring to think of my own safety, insisting, if my brother <em>were</em> being groomed into watching violent pornography and one day providing photos for deepfakes, <em>he</em> would be the victim and not <em>me</em>. Not <em>me</em>, the one who would be in the synthetic explicit materials, but him for being stupid enough to do what strangers on the internet told him?</p>
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<p>My poetry was too much for him to handle, too much to go unpunished, rewarded with being cut off from the world at random to the point of developing an anxiety disorder. But his sexual depravity is to be rewarded with the banishment of his much-hated sister.</p>
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<p>Another shiver ripples through my body, one that, were it not for the Veil, would have been enough to trigger me to shift. Part of me wishes, consequences of broad daylight be damned, that it had. Isn't that what every female feels with violent passion at least once in her life? To escape from the confines of her human body, to be made something monstrous and incomprehensible to the male gaze?</p>
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<blockquote>The body has been made so problematic for women that it has often seemed easier to shrug it off and travel as a disembodied spirit.<br>- Adrienne Rich, "Of Woman Born"</blockquote>
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<p>My constant fantasies, spilling into dreams, of going feral in my draconic form and disappearing into the forest to live there, never to be dragged back into civilization again. Of the loss of episodic memory that comes with such a form, finally free of the shackles of my guilt for having made mistakes like every other human in life and my anxiety over the next unwritten change of rules in the Golden Cage of the house of my parents. Of the inevitable side effect of gradually losing my explicit memory, names and faces and eventually words themselves fading from consciousness.</p>
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<p>Of Jett finally finding me, brave enough to walk close enough where I could cut her down with a single swipe of my claws. Of her taking my head into her hands, eyes closed, pressing our foreheads together.</p>
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<p lang="es">"¿Tu me recuerdas? Yo te llamó Lethe. Y eras mi esposa. Y yo te amó mucho."</p>
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<p><em>Do you remember me? I called you Lethe. And you were my wife. And I loved you a lot.</em></p>
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<p>She opens her eyes, tries to gaze where mine would be had I visible ocular organs.</p>
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<p lang="es">"¿Lo recuerdas mi nombre?"</p>
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<p><em>Do you remember my name?</em></p>
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<p>Almost two months ago, she said she was my "palm pal". It took me a few weeks to think to ask her what that actually meant. Cleared off my desk, put on my special necklace with the tree pendant, laid out my three runes.</p>
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<p>Sideways Thurisaz, Algiz, sideways Hagalaz.</p>
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<p>"It's always me, isn't it? I'm the last person you forget when your conscious mind slips away. I'm the one person you can restrain yourself from hurting. Well, if you're going to imprint on a story so hard that you stole one of your draconic forms from it, I think I have the right to claim the role of the companion who keeps you in a human shape. Who would go with you anywhere, no matter what... I want to go with you to the very top of Yewiffe. The very <em>very</em> top. If the roots are a painful and repressed past, then the branches are a sunny future, right? I want that bright future. With your hand in mine."</p>
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<p>My mother texts to ask if I'm coming home. I ask her if I have to, if it is required, that I am prepared to accept the consequences of running away for my own safety. She says no, that my grandmother can pick me up wherever I am: she and her want to spend time with me out of the house, safely far away from the Discord brat, having finally come to some sense of an understanding of my fears.</p>
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<p>Jett takes my hand, my palm pressed against hers, and the trembling stills. She pulls me to my feet.</p>
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<p>"Come on. I've got a lot of angel numbers to show you."</p>
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<p class="blink1">We love you, Lethe!</p>
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<p class="blink2">We love you, Lethe!</p>
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<p><em>We love you, Lethe, and all your weird parts, and every drop of blood in your veins. We love you just the way you are.</em></p>
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</body>
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</html>
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