Shame.

shattered and incoherent, the girl stumbled forward into a place she wasn't actually at as her head spun high above the clouds far up and away from the ants she stared down at

on the ground the ants had large crushing mandibles, spindling grotesqueness and piercing black eyes impaling everything they glanced at, coming by the masses to pick and pull and tear the girl into pieces that they kept and fed on, just being another piece of meat to serrate and dismember into bloody bits

up above the clouds she held her magnifying glass not to look back down at them, but to pierce the veil with a ray of menace to incinerate all of them, to watch them burn and shrivel and curl up, scattering frantically with no semblance of unity when they finally realise indignation is on their doorstep, capable of killing, murdering every last one of them

but she was not up there, and her head was so high that it didn't want to come down because there wasn't much left for the gibbering mouthers to take

which was the important question she had to ask herself

“why am i up here, there is nothing left for me down there”

a maniacal shimmering the masses reflected from the ground floor blinded her, and her head began spiraling back down to the earth, to fall back into the twisted amalgamation of leaky fluids and gaping holes she had to claim as her vessel, her body to transcend through the laughing, cruel psychosis, the divine prank this life set up for her

the wind bellowed under her, her perfect wedding dress resisting the fall and reaching up for something to grab onto with no avail

the mighty sun, the bringer of life, the grandiose incinerator shot upwards higher and further from her reach as the earth rushed to catch her, to feed the rest of her to the ants clamping their gaping maws open and shut in anticipation

this is not real, this is not happening.

“when you hit the ground, this reverie will end and you will back into the hole made for you, with others ready and willing to bury you.”

“...does this really have to happen, isn't there some other shambling mess i can take residence in?” the girl asked

as she turned away from the rolling sky a festering mound of flesh looked back at her, eyes hollowed out, mouth closed and drool dried like dirty water left running

legs splayed apart with vulgarity trickling out, eager to creep out of the hollow vessel, to vacate the emptiness it was placed into against her will and become nothing more than a crawling infestation onto the carpet it seeped into

twisting, twitching, ready and primed for suicide

the smiling love the corpse desperately clung to in its final moments ripped from her hands, sticky severed fingers still clinging to it as blood painted the trail it was dragged away on

all in the name of somebody else who probably won't notice.

___

She breathed, and convulsions trembled as Remilia's heart creaked back to life as the evening sun hung over the storage shed she was dragged into. Every breath an ordeal, her crushed chest strained to reach upwards with every inhale and exhale. The weight of her clothes were nowhere to be felt, her white polyester blouse torn down the middle as it rested on her shoulders and spilled onto the floor. Her eyes slowly and desperately pulled some light back into themselves to glance around. Her neck was the part of her body that ached the least, the gaping anomalies between her legs being parts that ached the most. Her voice was trying to claw its way out of her throat, but it continued to slip back down. She tried to throw her head up off the floor, hoping it would carry the rest of herself with it to no avail. She rolled to her side onto her stomach, her bare delicate breasts pressed against the cold jagged concrete floor. Her palms pushed the Earth away and attempted to force herself up as her arms shook violently. After a few minutes of struggle, she made her way into a sitting position and slumped against a wall of the shed. Her stockings were torn, exposing her once-pale knees that turned pink and raw. Her entire self felt empty, with a continuous pressure that got stronger the lower it went down her shivering body. She rubbed the dried crust from her mouth, a flat expression that hung underneath her bruised and pretty face. She was nothing more than a mannequin that had dirt smeared onto its face.

And as time was lost to her, she just laid slumped against the wall. The only sound to keep her company was her strained breathing. The only thing she could bare to look and pay attention to was the light creeping its way across the wall.

“......this is happening.” a stifled, dry voice spit out. A coughing fit crept in and Remilia hung over in agony. She slumped onto her side, and soon onto all fours as a viscous grip on her stomach crept its way upwards and she began to throw up. She almost fell over, yet careful enough not to fall in bile she just expunged. The purge left her there. The only thing left in her were tremors. Her legs brought her up. He hesitantly attempted to walk, but a single emaciated leg was not enough to support the girl. She fell forward and padded the fall with her right arm, grinding itself open against the floor. The discolored bruises that coated her forearms and wrists were checkered with red dots climbing out of her pores. Her teeth gritted and hinted at a buckle of composure, but the anger quickly left her face as the lifelessness retook residence. She made her way to her feet and stood as the room drifted back and forth. A draft beneath her skirt and the slight subsiding ache made her realize her panties were missing, as did the chipping off of sweat and miscellaneous fluid being shaken back to life and creeping down her legs. The door seemed far away. It wasn't. She was at a wild west stand-off with it, though the reason was she simply couldn't bring herself to try and walk again. She did not know what was outside, and what happened in the shed was being left to unlock the door.

___

and staring back out there, the bloody imprint the girl's impact made onto the floor as she came crashing back down

her head turned to look, enough to break her neck

all of the people, the endless hordes had black paint splashed across their faces, giant x's blotting out the crowds as all of them were nothing more than self-contained messes

unconcerned with the localized disasters each of them withstood that none of them had anything to do with

because everyone carries problems, this is not different, this is not worth everyone else to impede on

take the brush and paint yourself out like everyone else

bleed into this congealed mass, selfish, seeking to look away or to pacify others for nothing more than a moment's peace

and always remember to smile, even if you don't mean it

lies are the make-up that keep people from seeing how ugly of a person you are

twist and mangle this ribbon until it can't be recognized anymore, until it's the only knot that's holding all of this together

it's a lot easier than shame

Go out and be a family man.

“You're a fucking loser and you always will be.”

“...'kay.”

I agreed with the sentiment because my father was right. Up to this point in these 25 years of life, I can safely say that my win/loss record at life was running into the negative, so his assessment of me not winning and possibly continuing not to win from here on out was not based on fallacious thinking. I also said that because I was better than him and I knew when to keep my mouth shut.

“If you're so broken and depressed, why don't you just go ahead and kill yourself.”

“That's the second time you told me that.” And it was. The first time it hurt like Hell. Because I have problems, and living in fear your entire life of how people will judge you for having problems is the worst thing to think. So when you finally go to the funny farm and decide to let your family know that you need help, it ends up confirming all your fears when two months later your father uses that information you struggled so long to finally trust him with to hurt you tremendously. This was the second time though, so it didn't really hurt.

“This time I fucking mean it, you piece of shit.” Alright, so it still hurt a little.

“I'm getting your car fixed next week. When it's done, get the fuck out of my house.”

“Alright.” And this next week quickly changed to “Nevermind, get the fuck out now.”

“Okay.” And I decided to just get dressed proper and leave.

“Where the fuck are you going to go?” he asked. “What the fuck are you going to do?”

“...why the Hell are you worried and asking me about that shit if you're kicking me out in the first place?”

“You know what, fuck you. Get the fuck out you loser. And leave my fucking credit card, too.”

“I don't have it anymore, it expired.”

“Then leave your fucking phone, it's mine.”

“Okay.” That was initially relieving because then the man couldn't find me.And then I walked out. I was wearing denim jeans, a plaid white dress shirt, a white undershirt, and old brown dress shoes that were dirtied. I had my crooked sunglasses on that I've had since the beginning of High School where I thought rounded frames made me look like a badass and not a drug addict. In my pockets were my wallet, my glasses case, and a pair of headphones attached to nothing. I had a keyring on my belt. I had a USB with all of my writings on hand. And that was it. It was 4:48pm on a Thursday. And this all got started when I left my room to decide to weigh myself. Now I have an irrational fear of scales, thanks dad.

And 160. 15 pounds gone in five days, if you're wondering how unhealthy all of this shit's been.

Despite what transpired, I was oddly at peace as I walked through town. People dread that the worst would come out of a degenerating situation, and when it does and there's almost what could be considered a sigh of relief.

“...well I intended on moving out soon. I guess it's just happening sooner than expected.” That was a cause for celebration. “...with none of my possessions.” That wasn't. The worst really was the worst at that time. You could liken it to your house burning down and losing everything you ever owned. It took a while to set in on me, but it scared me. But with a new mission statement on hand, I walked to my brother's place. He wasn't home. I waited for a few hours. He pulled up and was getting ready to leave again when he saw me sitting on a stairwell in his apartment complex. He looked confused, and then the look on his face settled and he knew exactly what happened. Towards his better judgment he chose to uninvolve himself with the whole fiasco. I wanted to leave the place with as little of a fuss as possible. My brother would leave the place in flames, twisting his imaginary mustache in a Machiavellian way laughing like a nutcase. I could've easily said a lot of things to my father. If I wanted bridges burned, if I wanted vengeance for however I felt like he wronged me, I could've done it myself. But I chose not to. Maybe I agreed with him on most of it. Maybe I think I'm above devolving into fits of rage. Maybe I was too fucking tired of that shit to do it myself. Or maybe because I become a bigger monster than he is and I'm smarter and better than he is, so I would be able to hurt him far more than he hurt me. But I just wanted to get out, to distance myself from that and collect myself.

“...alright I need to go back in there and get some of my shit back.” The concept of breaking into your own (former) place of residence to steal things that belong to you was odd enough as it is. There was a window. Not an actual window, a metaphorical one of opportunity. I have fucking keys to the house, I'm not crawling through a goddamn window. My father leaves for work to drive school buses at around 6:30am give or take. He gets off at 9am and is back home a few minutes later. My brother loaned me his car, and now it was a raiding party at 7am. If you want to know what it's like to know the amount of anxiety and fear infesting me when I got there, imagine that you're drowning in a river. No, I'm not going anywhere with that, that's really it. I guess there could a deer pissing nearby or something, but that's all I got for this metaphor, I didn't really think it through.

My stepmom was there. She was okay with letting me in. She told me my dad already felt like shit about it and not to worry. Not my problem, I gots shit to get before I leave. Lashing out just because “anger” isn't a good excuse, even if everything's hunky dory when it's done. People in prison for assault or murder “just lost control and did some things they regretted later”. Being the materialistic person I was, you could say my priorities were... let's not beat around the bush, fucking stupid and pathetic. I got enough clothes to wear, to survive. I ripped the harddrive out of my computer, for it was me. It was my life on this hunk of metal and tape. But I could get a lot more shit. What is truly important to me? What is truly valuable to my well-being, in this time of serious change where I can only take the necessities.

“Well shit, I'm not leaving the Nendoroids here.” And I took my goddamn Nendoroids. And my figurines. And my manga. And a lot of my games. Don't fucking judge me, I thought I'd never see this shit again. I can buy my own clothes, SENTIMENTAL KNICKKNACKS ARE GONE FOREVER. I took my fucking guitar, too. I can't play the damn thing, but I want to learn. When I got back to my brother's place, I swear he was going to kick my ass.

“...the fuck is wrong with your priorities? Why do you need this shit?”

“Because I had room.” I answered.

“Why would you take your QOTSA vinyl record?”

“IT WAS A GIFT.”

“You're fucking pathetic.”

“Yep.” But I fucking had it, so he can fuck off.

“Go back there and get your cell phone.”

“He said it was his. I don't want to give him something to hold over me.”

“Fucking steal it, what's he going to do, you're going to be in Oregon.” And I was going to be in Oregon, that's where I was moving to. I had a lease signed ahead of time before all this happened. I arrived at my brother's place Thursday evening. We bought tickets to leave Saturday night. I retrieved what I could Friday morning and evening. I had 130 dollars to my name.

While we waited at the train station, there was apprehension. This was the end of this particular failure, this endeavor with these people that I struggled to make do with. As I boarded the train, I felt like a walking cliché; dressed poorly, a week and a half's worth of facial hair smeared onto my face, no haircut. The only things I carried onto the main deck was my backpack that I've had since Middle School, and a guitar slinged over my shoulder. Someone asked me why it didn't have a case. I told them I didn't need one. They asked me where I got it. I told them that there was a guy who used to live in the apartment complex I lived in, he came across as a bit of a drug addict; he was an older man who was a recluse due to being hurt in a marriage, who stayed in his house and practiced. He latched onto the younger generation and watched anime and played videogames. He eventually got evicted, and while I saw him moving out, he took this guitar and gave it to me alongside some gear. He said he couldn't take it with him. I told him I couldn't play. He said to learn. Then the passenger asked me if I have learned, and I told them not yet. But it comes with me until I do.

I arrived up in Albany the following afternoon. My friend picked me up and we bantered. Then something was said that let me know what was going to happen here.

“Hey, what if this doesn't work out?” I asked him. “What if I just end up fucking this all up again and this all goes to Hell? What then?” And he had seven words to say to me, and only seven.

“You won't. Everything will probably be okay.” And that was it. Those were common words, words I hear every day. Just never structured like that. And that was really all I needed to hear.

When we got back to his place, you would suspect that the man's apartment had been robbed. He hadn't finished cleaning up, which is to be expected since I was there two and a half weeks early. I got settled in regardless. When he went to work a day or so later, I just sat on the couch. I thought about what transpired. Regardless of what happened, I didn't begrudge or hate my father. I simply pitied him. His father, Frank, was an asshole. My father hated him. When he died, they got a phonecall at the house and my mom told him when he came home.

“Hey, your father had another heart attack.”

“Did this one kill him?”

“...yeah.”

“Good.” And that was the end of the discussion. My father tried his hardest to avoid turning into that person his entire life. He worked hard, and always had good intentions. He just failed a lot, and his anger would seize control of him, torture him, frustrate him. It took me a while to realize that he wasn't much better than my mother as an alcoholic, having a disease take hold of him and make him do terrible regrettable things. A man who approaching 60, completely dissatisfied with his life and how it turned out, driving away his kids with his misguided good intentions and violent tendencies. And as a failure of a son, the only bone I can throw to this man is to understand him, and still attach myself to him so he doesn't die like his father did. That's the least I can do.

That's what went through my head while I sat there alone. And then for the first time in a while, I cried. I cried and I was laughing hysterically at the same time. The neighbors probably thought I lost my mind as I just sobbed and laughed and made a mess of myself. And I was able to say something and mean it for the second time. The first time was when I left my mother. The second time to no surprise was when I left my father. And they're words people hear every day too, that they vastly undermine the value of. The only thing I had to say to all this was what left my mouth.

“I'm finally fucking free.”

Fallout.

“...Hello? ...yeah of course I'm at home. ...Uh huh. Yeah. ......Marcus is the one handling that, isn't he? ......Seriously? What about Re—right, alright. ...no I don't care if you people will sort it out. I can be there in 10 minutes. ......no I'm fucking coming in. If he thinks it's a good idea to try doing this on my day off, he will learn. I'm going to make a fucking point here. ......Hell yes you people are lost without me. Yeah, I'll be there. I'm heading for my car now.”

Almost as if an unearthly force was approaching, the front door to the store wasn't so much as unlocked and slid open as it was ripped off of its frame. Everybody on the floor noticed Autumn storm in and walk immediately over to customer service and grab a telephone.

“Attention, I would like to see everybody to come to the front of the store for a meeting.” Her voice teetered with impatience throughout the entire store over the intercom. “That includes everybody currently working on the truck and Mikey, who figured it was a good idea to call me into work.” Everybody ceased their work and shuffled out of the stock room to the front of the store. Johnathon and Remilia came out of the main office as well, the latter holding a sandwich.

“I don't see this ending particularly well.” Johnathon muttered.

“What's going on?” Alma asked. “And where's Marcus?” Autumn stood in front of the store, hair done up in a ponytail, her token brown-framed glasses absent. Most particularly noticed was her attire.

“Now, I know what all of you are thinking.” She paused. “Scratch that, I don't. Because I'm not an idiot. But I know you have questions.”

“I have a question, Ms. Autumn.” Alma raised her hand.

“No you don't, put your hand down before I put it down for you.” Alma timidly lowered her hand.

“So you probably have a few questions. Like 'Why are you not wearing your glasses?' and 'Why weren't you at work earlier and decided to show up fifteen minutes before we open?' and that old chestnut, 'Why are you in a sports bra and yoga pants?'”

“I can answer that.” Remilia spoke up. “Is it because you're putting on weight again?”

“Yes, Remilia. That's exactly it. I'm hoping to lose enough weight to go down a cup size so you'd stop staring at my breasts like you're going to steal them.”

“They're nice boobs.”

“Yes I'm aware.” There was an awkward cough among the staff. “But the real reason to that is because I was at the gym. I was at the gym because it's my day off. And I was at the gym most definitely because ever since a hopeless ball of sunshine has taken up a parasitic existence at my established residence as of late, the gym serves several vital services in keeping my work ethic and composure at this store efficient. With Mr. Smiles at my house, the gym is the only place I can go by myself and reflect on how overqualified I am for this job and how every single one of you doesn't deserve to even be carried by my success that's bringing this store into the third best in the region. The gym is the place where I can reflect on how miserable every last person's existence in this store is without somebody vomiting rainbows in my general direction attempting to explain the contrary. And most importantly,” Autumn cracked her knuckles. “The gym is the place where I look for sparring partners but most of them turn me down at this point because I've broken 14 bones in the past three months, none of them mine because I'm able to take what excess bile I've saved up working in this hellhole and expel it onto complete strangers.” Everybody remained silent. “Which brings us to THIS current situation. HEY MIKEY. COME ON OUT. I SEE YOU HIDING IN WOMEN'S, SOME PLACE SUITABLY APPROPRIATE FOR YOU.” Michael trembled a bit and stepped forward. “I won't bite, come here.” He was cautious like a wild animal accepting food from a stranger, looking at Autumn's hand offered forward while he slowly stepped towards her.

“Now dearie...” The look on Autumn's face couldn't really be described adequately to articulate what Michael felt. Her skin was glistening from sweat, like a pearl dropped into water. Her smile had her lips closed, yet made it clear that there were teeth hiding behind them. And when Michael looked into her large amber eyes, he saw himself in a void, surrounded by a ring of fire. And if he didn't look away, he was going to be incinerated.

“You must've had a Hell of a good reason to get Johnathon to call me into work. Did somebody die? I don't see any blood or anything. Did Remilia finally snap and kill somebody?”

“Hurr.”

“Because if not, I'm about to.” Her false smile faded a bit and her eyebrow raised. “Actually, did she kill Marcus? Where the Hell is he?” She shook her head a bit and looked back at Michael.

“So out with it.” she sneered. “What in Jesus's merciful name was so important that you had to call me from home to come in?” There was awkward silence as everybody couldn't help but look at Michael, standing in the ring of fire, incapable of being helped by any of them. “MIKEY.”

“Uh... well,” he stammered.

“'Uh well?'”

“We needed somebody to sign off for the shipment after the truck unloaded and Remilia went on lunch.” Autumn's eyebrow twitched a bit.

“...are you fucking shitting me. I just. I don't eve—MARCUS IS THE M.O.D., IT'S HIS GODDAMN JOB. DON'T GO FUCKING CALLING ME IN ON MY ONLY DAY OFF THIS WEEK JUST BECAUSE OF THE MOST TRIVIAL BULLSHIT IMAGINA—actually wait no seriously where's Marcus now that I think about it?”

“He went into the bathroom and never came out.” Alma said. Autumn facepalmed.

“Oh are you kiddi—did Remilia actually kill him this time? She's been threatening him for months.”

“I wouldn't go into the men's bathroom to kill him, I know what goes on in the men's bathroom.” Remilia said.

“...I don't know why you know what goes on in the men's bathroom but okay.” Autumn began walking through the shoe department to get to the restrooms. “And I swear to God Mikey if you move an inch from where you are I will give Remilia permission to kill you.”

“I have my boxcutter just in case.~” A glimpse of a dark smile peaked through while everybody shivered in unison. As Autumn approached the men's bathroom, she heard moaning coming from it.

“Marcus, what in God's name are you doing to yourself in there?” she shouted outside the door.

“OH GOD IT HURTS, AUTUMN.”

“Marcus, we're here for you. We won't actually do anything but watch, but we'll be here watching.”

“THERE'S BLOOD EVERYWHERE.”

“...Jesus Christ did Remilia really try to kill you this time?”

“No, dammit.” Remilia shouted across the store.

“I... I ATE JACK IN THE BOX BEFORE I CAME TO WORK.”

“Oh merciful God we've lost him already.” She sighed and walked back over to the group of associates, all watching Michael as he hadn't moved an inch.

“You didn't move, did you?”

“No, ma'am.”

“You remember that there are security cameras that I can check later to see if you're lying, right?”

“......yes, ma'am.” She noticed the pause. She looked at the associates.

“You're going to tell me if he moved. Did he move?” Nobody said anything. She approached Alma.

“Alma.” she flatly said. The young girl gulped. Granted Alma was taller than Autumn, Autumn was not a petite and bubbly cheerleader body type like Alma. Autumn for all her elegant facial features and curves was built like a woman who had just gotten out of prison, and she fought like one too. She did not need height to look down on people.

“Ms. Autumn.”

“Did Mikey move?”

“...define 'move.'”

“That's a good enough answer.” She turned to the associates. “Now, since I still have much, much excess bile that I've yet to dispose of through sheer exercise, I'm going to run laps around the store. And all of you idiots are going to join me for wasting my time.” There was silence. Autumn started laughing to herself and the rest of the associates started laughing with her. “Ahahahahaha GO. I'M FUCKING SERIOUS. START RUNNING. GO GO GO, MOVE YOUR ASSES.” And everybody immediately started jogging. “Except you three.” she referred to Johnathon, Remilia and Michael.

“You.” she looked at Johnathon. “Go back to fixing our digis. I want the software up to date by the time we start markdowns tomorrow. And punch me in when you go back into the office so we can have an M.O.D. on the clock to sign off the truck.”

“Will do.”

“And check on Marcus in a bit to make sure he hasn't expelled his heart out through his rectum.”

“I don't want to, I know what goes on in the men's bathroom.” he muttered.

“You.” she looked at Remilia. “Make sure they keep running for 15 minutes. I'm going to go back home after this nonsense.”

“Got it.”

“And leave the ones who drop on the ground, just make sure to drag them off the floor before the store opens.” And then Autumn turned to Michael.

“As for you,” she slowly approached him as he trembled yet didn't shift from his position. “I want to fire you for crap like this, but be grateful you still have some uses to me on my road to success out of this place.”

“T-thank you.”

“Instead I'm going to punish you in a different way that made you wish you were fired.”

“...oh god what?”

Inconspicuously enough, Michael went home for the day and the security footage from the camera in front of the store had the previous ten minutes edited out by Johnathon as Autumn went home. The only thing Alma and her co-workers noticed was Mikey went on sick leave. Or at least that's what they heard and they didn't want to ask any further questions.

Soul searching.

“Is that...?”

“I think I'm hallucinating.”

“Impossible, I thought most of them were dead.”

“She looks enough like one, though.”

“At least one that hasn't turned.”

“Yet.”

“I'm scared, I've never seen one in person before.”

“She's so pale.”

“What's she doing here?”

“And what is that on her back?”

The topic in question was somebody who wandered into the village. A young girl who looked no older than her late teens dressed up in a rather extravagant manner. Pale enough that she almost appeared translucent, although you could only tell from her sickly, tired face. She was in an intricate black dress reminiscent of the Victorian age that covered all her bare skin save her face. There on her head rested faded blue eyes that were stuck upon the face of a porcelain doll, framed by her black bangs and long hair. She was a bit dainty, which seemed to undermine the amount of strength she seemed to possess carrying what appeared to be a coffin on her back.

Of course while that was odd enough, what struck the townsfolk the most was that she appeared to be a human.

“A crowd has gathered, it seems.” she said what appeared to be to herself.

“They detect the presence of your souls. You best tread carefully or get tread on yourself.”

“I seem to be the popular gal everywhere, I say.” She hesitantly looked around as the citizens of the small village looked at her. Some wearily, some perplexed, some curious. In a world where humanity has long since declined to the point of extinction, seeing the young girl could be interpreted as a lot of things. She was a rarity, a myth only heard in legend or fairy tales. She was an ill omen to some, seen as the harbinger of death. To others, she was money. To capture a long sought-after species that was widely considered extinct, scientists, alchemists, cultists would pay top coin to dissect her or study her. But none dared to try, because nobody knew if all the woven stories and legends were true about what they could do.

“It can't be a human.” one of the villagers said. “It's probably another doll, a homunculus.”

“She's a walking defacement of everything we believe in.”

“She could be a prophet.”

“Who knows? I don't want to ask her, her eyes scare me.” But the girl didn't seem to care for their expressions. They didn't have any. They weren't human.

“...a village of Shadowmelds.” the girl stated. “A misplaced judgment in safety to come here, I'm beginning to think.”

“You think?”

“Regardless, the trail led us through here so we might find some clues, one would hope.” The girl scanned her surroundings with her weary eyes. She was surrounded by a sea of black tendrils with white masks checkering the crowds, their voices becoming increasingly more frantic and nervous as they looked at her. Shadowmelds were nothing more than dark apparitions, gelatinous shadows that extended from the ground to a height of an average human. Their most distinct characteristic were their masks, vaguely modeled with human facial features to discern themselves from one another.

“I believe retiring to an inn would be wise, yes?” she uttered as she was growing concerned of the gathering crowd.

“Yes, make haste. We can gather information if one's showed up here there.” And so the girl did. The sun cast an orange glow on the village as it started to sink over the horizon. The entrance of the inn was a bar, where a wide variety of salty creatures and apparitions stayed. Drunk off of sorrow, the rabble-rousing in the bar seemed to get significantly quieter as the girl walked in. Demons and lamias and bloodthirsty horned minotaurs all stopped drinking and noticed the human walk in. Some averted their eyes. Some sneered. She approached the shadowmeld innkeeper, who was also playing bartender to the rest of the folk inside.

“I'd like a room, if you have a spare.” she said. The innkeeper couldn't speak. His white mask began to sink a bit into himself.

“Um. I'm not sure we serve your kind here.” he nervously choked up.

“I have money, I do.” she pulled out her wallet and laid a handful of bills on the counter. “Surely that's enough for a room, yes?”

“Uh... what about... what about that?” He formed a tendril to point at the coffin.

“She'll be staying with me too, yes.”

“Err, what's in it?” the innkeeper asked.

“That's probably best left unanswered, I say.” That didn't seem to make the atmosphere in the bar any less tense. A chair could be heard screeching against the hardwood floor as a tall and lumbering beast stirred himself from his seat to confront her. His musculature was similar to an enormous man, but he had the head and hooves of a bull. He was covered in ragged clothes in a somewhat vain attempt to humanize himself.

“I don' like yeh comin' here one bit.” he shouted as he approached her. “Another fuckin' bloody doll comes wandering in here. Does yer master think yeh're special enough to be sculpted after a human or wot?”

“I have no master, sir.” she rebuked.

“Who da hell are yeh?”

“Reo Sterling, sir.”

“What da hell are yeh?”

“If I told you I was a homunculus, would that pacify your insistence to pry information out of me?”

“Reo, watch your tongue.” The minotaur paused.

“Where'd that voice come from?” he slurred out.

“Pay no heed to it.” she muttered. “May I retire now, I've come far from the East and I would like to get some sleep for the night.” Her comment got the bar stirring.

“What, yeh came from thar? Yeh managed ta escape after wot happened over thar?”

“Yes.” she plainly stated. Another folk, a skittish fox stood up.

“I heard a chain of villages were getting burned down and working their way over towards the west.” He began trembling. “Y-you, you were the one who did it, weren't you? WEREN'T YOU?”

“Talk to me after you've crawled out of that mead-soaked hole before throwing accusations around, you pillock.”

“Reo, no.” Reo averted her glance from the fox back towards the beast in front of her. The minotaur huffed.

“I don' know where that voice is comin' from, but it's right y'know. Best watch yer lips around here, doll.”

“Can I just go to bed?” Both stood facing each other for a while. The minotaur stood a good three feet over Reo and looked as if he could crush her head with his palm, but she didn't move an inch. He let out a snort and walked back to his table and started drinking. She let out a sigh and grabbed her room key as she headed upstairs.

“Reo, you almost started another scene.”

“I will not be talked down by cattle, Mog.”

“Unless you want what happened at the other villages to happen again here, I would refrain from opening that big mouth of yours.”

“Hmph.” The coffin was propped against the wall. Its features could be barely seen in the dim candle-lit room. It was in the traditional hexagonal shape of an old-style casket while it had an ornate cross resting on the lid. The cross was affixed with slots for a handful of leather straps running through it to keep the lid bound to the casket. It's where the voice Reo was speaking to was coming from.

“And as if further wanton destruction of said villages wasn't because of a little strumpet who couldn't control herself, am I correct?”

“No fair, you know how I get when I'm around people.”

“Hence why you're in there, child.” Reo sighed and took off her boots as she crawled into bed. “Now I expect an eventful night, so I'm going to get as much sleep as I can at least before then, yes?” She blew out the candle and almost instantly fell asleep in her dingy bed.

“REO.”

“Hmm... wha... is it time already...?”

“REO GET UP.” And as Reo rubbed her sunken eyes to consciousness, she took benign interest in what was in front of her. The moon was shining brightly through her room, lighting it up more than her candle previously did.

“Well at least the li'l doll will be awake fo' when I rip 'er limb from limb.” The large minotaur beast was in her room, reeking of alcohol. Earlier signs showing he peeled off the door with his enormous strength and ruined the frame working his way into the small room.

“The things you sleep through, Reo. For Heaven's sake.” the coffin muttered.

“Do you mind?” Reo nonchalantly yawned. “A single night's rest is all I ask for, I do.”

“Yer a cocky li'l shit until the very end, aren't yeh?” the minotaur spit. “High an' mighty because she's modeled afta a pretty li'l human.” She pulled her feet out of bed and crossed her legs as she stared at the towering behemoth, his horns only a foot or so away from scraping the ceiling.

“So what is it that you want, Mr. Cattle?” she sighed. “I have money, yes. I have research notes for what I do in my line of work, yes.”

“I want to smash yer disgusting head in.”

“You do realize that we're in a land where everybody is effectively immortal, correct? Hardly anybody in this world has a soul to speak off, we're all mostly just walking corpses, I say. What good would it come from 'smashin' mah head in?'” She shifted into his rough English accent mockingly.

“I can't kill yeh, but it doesn't mean I can't make yeh wish yeh weren't dead and then stealin' everything but the clothes off yer back.”

“Well good, glad we got that cleared up. Most of my belongings are in that coffin, you see.”

“Reo...”

“I dare say, you should let me display my wares first. There's quite a hoarder's delight in there, yes?” The minotaur turned around and began unhinging some of the locks and straps on the coffin.

“What could yeh possibly have that I would even wa--” The minotaur was cut off before he could finish his sentence. And by “cut off”, his throat was impaled by a dark tendril as he started letting out a gagged moan choked with blood before more dark appendages reached out of the coffin and began ripping pieces of him off and pulling him in before he was enveloped entirely and dragged into the casket. The lid clasped shut as only the sound of the monster howling in agony and his bones crunching could be heard from the shaking coffin.

“No one is immortal when I'm around, baby cow.” Reo smirked. “Is it at least prime cut, my dear child?” The coffin stopped stirring and her room became silent.

“He struggled a fair bit for a single creature.” Mog muffled out, the sound of her mouth crammed with food.

“Well he is a minotaur. Many of them in our studies has shown them to be quite the lumbering beasts, yes?” Of course as she talked, she looked at the door. The jittery, paranoid fox was holding a lantern as he peered into the entrance to her room, terrified out of his mind at the sight of blood smeared and splattered all over the ground.

“I—I KNEW IT! SHE'S A MONSTER! I HAVE TO GO ALERT THE VILLAGERS BEFORE WE ALL DIE!”

“MOG.” But before Reo could open the casket, the fox bolted through the hall downstairs. “...so this again.” A sneer crossed the girl's exhausted face as she lurched herself onto her feet and proceeded to get ready to go downstairs.

“It's going to be trouble this time.” Mog stated.

“I'm aware.”

“You haven't fixed your cross yet.”

“I'm aware.”

“And you know how Shadowmelds get under a full moon.”

“I'm. Aware.”

When Reo went through the bar, it was empty. It was empty because all of its residents alongside the residents of the town were outside with torches. She stepped out the door, and there the mob looked her down. A sea of torches checkered with white masks and horns and other appendages loomed in front of her.

“THERE SHE IS, THE MONSTER!” the fox shouted.

“Do you folks really want to do this, I ask?” Reo sighed.

“IT'S NOT LIKE SHE CAN KILL US!” a Shadowmeld yelled in the crowd.

“Yeah!”

“We can't kill her either, though...”

“But we can rip her apart and make it impossible for her to pick up the pieces.”

“What if she really is a human?”

“What if the legends are true?”

“She's probably a doll, there's no way she can be a human.” Reo shook her head.

“I... gave up my humanity a long time ago, I did. But now,” lifted the casket over her head and slammed it in front of her. “If you heathens and ne'er-do-wells think it would be a wise investment to provoke me, I am warning you now: nobody here will escape without the stench of death following them indefinitely.” Of course Reo was preaching to a sea of corpses, creatures without souls and thus were immune to most standard threats of mortality. They could be battered and bruised but they would either reassemble themselves or they wouldn't ever truly die. It was the fate of all creatures in the land. But Reo was not a standard threat of mortality because she wielded the most significant danger to life.

“...”

“...call her bluff.”

“...let's tear her to pieces.”

“LET'S RIP HER TO SHREDS!” The crowd howled and began closing its ground.

“Mog,” Reo whispered into the back of the coffin. “Time to feast.”

“I'm not fond of Shadowmelds, but a meal's a meal.” Reo ripped the binding leather off the casket lid and swung open. It was pitch black inside, as if it was a door to the abyss itself. The last thing the mob saw was a pair of glowing red eyes and a Cheshire grin visible from the reflecting moonlight. And what they felt before fear and death enveloped them was the one threat to immortality; humanity.

“They actually got me that time, I say.” Reo's left sleeve was torn off, her left arm drenched in blood. “Shadowmelds are such wily creatures in a full moon.”

Reo hoisted the coffin onto her back and began walking through the burning village. Torches strewn across the ground, maimed giblets of things, black quivering masses of what used to be alive were everywhere. A trembling white mask laid on the ground, as if it was still alive before it was stamped beneath Reo's heel and shattered into pieces.

“Is that all of them?” Mog asked.

“One more, yes?” Reo walked over slowly. “Our little fox friend.” The fox was crawling away behind a storage shed in the village, his legs mangled and bleeding as he frantically backed himself against the wall, terrified of the young human girl approaching him.

“Y-you... you really a-are a human, aren't you?”

“I'm not, anymore.” she knelt down in front of the fox. “I'm what you call a corpse collector.” The fox's eyes widened as he trembled violently.

“Y-y-you're the corpse collector? THE CORPSE COLLECTOR? THE GRIM REAPER!?”

“Well I suppose 'the' is a more appropriate term, yes. I appear to be the only one at the moment, it seems. My job is to make sure that death still occurs in this disgusting world. I've been alive far longer than you have, fox boy.”

“...it's impossible. Humans were killed off centuries ago. If you're human, you should be dead!”

“Again, I gave up my humanity a long time ago, child. I will die eventually, when my source of nourishment eventually depletes itself in time. Which given that I escort the carrier of all human souls that once existed, could be quite a while.”

“Reo, why are you telling him this?” Mog muttered inside her casket.

“Merely exposition, dear child. There's not many people who will learn about the world that existed before this.”

“W-why me... WHY ME THOUGH?” the fox yelled.

“Because you can keep a secret, my dear.” a slightly solemn smile crossed her face. “The dead can keep secrets like no other, and soon you'll be dead too, fortunately.” The color left the fox's face as he began to weep.

“I-is... is everyone in this village dead now?”

“Of course, humanity is the threat to all immortality, yes?” She knocked against the casket on her back. “This abomination is the biggest threat to this world imaginable, so I keep her locked up in here, you see.”

“...what is she?”

“She's the first real human of this age, of course.”

“...t-that thing, THAT WASN'T HUMAN! Even I know that much...”

“She is the fate of humans who reap too many souls of other humans, they're twisted into what lurks in here. She has turned, she is what humans are now, which thankfully there are precious little of left in this world. I was hoping a human passed through this village at some point, but it appears my leads were cold.” She dusted her dress as she stood back up. “But it appears I've exhausted your time.”

“I'm... I'm not actually going to die, am I?”

“Oh you will, my dear. Be grateful, next to souls death is a prized commodity in this world. No longer do you have to be a breathing corpse, you can know rest like everyone else here does now, I say.” As the fox's panic began to bleed out of him, his eyes dimmed and his breathing ceased. Reo closed his eyes as she stood up.

“So there wasn't a human here, either, I suppose.”

“Nope.”

“I suppose we keep trailing our lead to the west and hope God smiles on us, yes?”

“Ironic that you of all people talk about hope and God, Reo.”

“Yes yes, I thought it was rather clever.” The sun started to rise over the smoldering town, but it remained engulfed in darkness from all the smoke in the air deflecting choking the light. Reo began walking alongside the dirt road out of the village to the west.

Wouldn't your family be proud?

This is what it's like inside the box. The walls are finally visible, I can't run outside of it anymore. That thing I've been looking for, that I've been chasing after is on the other side of this wall and I only realized that I couldn't reach it. I learned that these walls exist because I've finally run into them. This is the limit of what I am capable of in this state. There are no doors. The walls can't be seen by the naive dreamers or the hopeless romantics, they don't have the venom dripped into their eyes yet. There is a ceiling. I can watch the planes go by, watch the leaves blow. And I realize that is what I wish for. To be outside of this, either having some pre-set destination to look forward to, or to just drift aimlessly and let things decide where to take me. What I am here, is standing still, trapped. The only thing I can see the moon, and it's going to kill me. As the full moon wanes, that crescent scythe gets sharper and eventually it's going to fall from the sky and dismember me. Hopefully I'll be asleep so I won't have to notice a thing and that'll be it.

And that's what most people amount to. They realize that their dreams are on the other side of the glass and they can't reach it. They can't chase after it anymore because they're trapped, and all they can do is settle. Make do with what they're comfortable with. To sit inside the box just to watch the moon phase in and out while the planes fly by with the only mental manifesto being “good enough”. The best you can is good enough. And your “good enough” was not.

Your dreams and goals were a farce.

You weren't good enough for them and they were too good for you.

You're not capable.

You're not happy, you're content.

You're a dark soul who won't go outside into the dark because he likes the lights on.

You're a piece of scenery.

You're the one in your family they “had such high hopes for.”

You don't achieve, you settle.

You're no good.

You're a fucking loser.

We all stagnate like cobwebs on the wall, praying to go unnoticed until everybody realizes how much of a pointless sight you are before they dust you off, to sweep you under the rug. But I, we are too tired to move. We are too stuck to move. If our car gets stuck in the mud, we decide we just aren't going to drive to work today. What I can get by with, it's good enough. I wear glasses because I'm nearsighted. The glasses don't help. The only thing the future holds is dread, or it holds nothing. Thankfully tomorrow does not come today. It comes tomorrow, and as long as we can continue living in today we don't have to worry about tomorrow. That horizon, that sudden drop will show up. And we spend every opportunity waiting in fear when it will show up, yet ironically be surprised, woefully unprepared when it does.

The box will torture you. It will work for your needs. You can't hear the people out there, vocalizing their disappointment, their anger, their disgust. But you can watch them, and they're always watching you. Always silently reminding you that you weren't good enough to make it out like the rest of them. Some people learn to ignore it and just be content inside, accepting mediocrity, accepting that this was the best they could do. The rest of us, me, I realize finally here on the onset of my 25^th birthday, that I look around and I've spent most of my strength over the past year attempting to break out after finding out that I'm in here. It's not working anymore. I'm getting tired. I want to go to sleep and just sleep for once. Thought is for the talented. Thought is for the troubled. Thought is not allowed in the box. Those who think in the box will eventually pull the trigger. And if they don't, they just look up at the moon and wait for the thing to finally fall out of the sky. To live in the box is to drone on, to eliminate all thought to ignore the personal Hell you've created for yourself.

It's all your fault, no one else's.

Why are you still blaming other people?

Can't you just accept that you're defective?

That you're broken?

That this is entirely your own doing?

You built this yourself, stop making excuses.

Sit down and accept that this is it for you.

Because you can just be reminded later that at one point you told yourself that this was “good enough.”

Thank Muhammad for politically-correct homogenized semantics.

The other day I was in one of my drug-induced deliriums and from the monotony of working a delightful retail job that was slowly sending my soul into the abyss, and I failed to note what holiday Monday was. When I asked my father, he was angry as expected and said he expected a foreigner to ask that question, not somebody born in this country. It was Veteran's Day, of course. And I say: big fucking whoop to that. Now I'm being completely serious here; what have veterans ever done for me, huh? Fight for this country? Fight for our freedom and the glory of America? Alright, dandy. But why should I care? Stay with me, there's more to this.

I'm a man who has always found the concept of patriotism... peculiar, to say the least. Now with that said, some people are going to assume that there's some anti-American sentiment taking place here, and I would call you mistaken. There's merely animosity. Because in the big picture, absolutely none of this affects the average person. Those people who were over in the Middle East? Do you think they're fighting for a good cause, fighting for our benefit, for our freedom? That the terrorist threat would somehow crawl their way out of whatever cave they're huddled in at the moment and somehow through neglect of us lifting our almighty thumb would manage to find a way to dismantle the American infrastructure, to make sure that you, you and whatever backalley town or minor city you live in, end up threatened and your lives would be altered in any drastic way if these people weren't dying overseas? I mean yes they're dying for what can be perceived as a morally just and righteous cause, but is beneficial to you in any way? Probably not, other than a sense of pride that through whatever collateral damage we're causing policing the world that occasionally something good might come of it.

Now what about the veterans of yesteryear who fought for America when the country was legitimately threatened? Fair enough, they deserve respect for helping preserve the country in a dire time. But let's talk about general patriotism here for a second; I don't believe in it. Not to say that I'm not grateful for being born in this country where I'm given a good opportunity and an honest shot at making something of myself despite my apparent squandering of it at every possible turn because I have time like that to take it for granted. Or do I? Why do people call this the greatest country on Earth? What are they making comparisons to? They're comparing us through our looking glass of other countries. Most of us have lived here for our entire lives, some of us in a single state or only a handful of them. What arrogance does it take for you to say that we're the best when you don't know shit? There could a village tucked away in the darkest jungles of Africa where all the women have magically developed Saccharomyces cerevisiae in their tits and are lactating beer and are willing to have sex with you while their husbands are at work, and then you go to the bar after work where the husbands buy you drinks on the house and then ask you if you want to go home and have a Nyotaimori-styled dinner of barbequed ribs and bacon on their wives before you have sex with the husband the wife of course the wife again, only to go to sleep on a pile of sexy young Indonesian boys even though this is isn't anywhere near Australia but this is my fantasy so fuck off. And if a town like that exists, fuck country loyalty I'm going to Africa because that's the greatest city on Earth and none of your hollow patriotism will change that.

I approach this the same way I approach race and women: by mindless discrimination and hatred by asking one simple question; why are you proud of something you had no hand in determining? You did not choose when and where your dad decided not to pull out. The definition of pride in the positive annotation is a sense of satisfaction or pleasure from an accomplishment, achievement, or qualities/traits that you possess. So while you could technically be proud of being a woman, an American, black, etc... what have you done to earn it? What have you done to deserve it? It was given to you. Now there are loopholes here; you can be proud to be a feminist because that's a conscious effort to embrace particular ideals and philosophies, but you can be a feminist without being a woman. Or hell, when my dad brought up foreigners, I thought to myself “Well fuck, if anything THEY have a right to be patriotic or to say that America kicks ass.” I would believe them more than an American. They're more entitled to their pride because they earned their right to be here, they fought for it, they have somewhere else to actually compare America to in order to draw that conclusion. Most Americans can only reference what they know, which is extremely limited in scope for the most part. That's ironic to say coming from somebody who just made an enormous generalization about pride in nationality who doesn't even know what nationality he is other than “white” and “just enough Native American to get free money from the government but not enough to care about the culture”.

Which also comes back to one of my other points; you can be proud of or fascinated with a culture irregardless of whether or not your heritage has anything to do with it. I'm glad that Spanish people still speak Spanish even though when we're at work I can't understand a fucking thing that they're saying. And not just because Spanish food is delicious, either. They can be proud of their culture simply because it's not in its original context anymore; it's something they have to actively participate in to maintain instead of assimilating like the rest of the mindless beige and peach drones sprouting up in the country. It's not being handed to them anymore. There's a difference between that and race. Being black and proud strikes me as odd because there's little to no impression of actual African culture at this point; it's a subset of American culture, which aside from the police hating the shit out of you and being entitled to use the word “nigga” is by and large remarkably similar to standard American culture.

Of course at this point you can ask what defines American culture, and the fastest way to find out that answer is to attempt to live in another country, like somewhere in Europe, and just see how your mannerisms and personal priorities manage to be different than everyone else. And then you can be proud to be an American when you realize how shitty Britain's food is and how you want to shove some ribs into your facehole while talking about how much better the world is after we've been policing it.

Sometimes I wish I just reproduced by budding.

I've masturbated to some weird shit as of late, have I told you people? And I mean some seriously out-there kind of shit. Any sort of sexual deviant who has some perverse fetish, I feel I must apologize to you. Because at this point, I feel like that there's a good chance that I've probably been there. I might be able to understand. I might be able to understand why some people prefer 2D to 3D. I might be able to understand why lamias and centaurs are a thing for some people. I might be able to understand what makes a pedophile tick, regardless of how horrific it is. I feel like I might be able to understand S and M a bit more. Though I still don't understand why people are into scat or vacuum-packing fetishes, you people are fucking weird. But I might be able to sympathize. Because again, I've probably been there at this point. There isn't a picture on the internet my one-eyed monster hasn't looked at and there isn't an object in the house that hasn't had some rope arched over it at some point. And in whatever position imaginable, to boot. I can tell you that the onset of this discussion began after I had the really bad idea of jerking off while propping my back up against the wall upside down with my ass sticking in the air, and it ended about as poorly as you'd expect it to. I just sat there for a bit in that position in the dim afterglow. Blood rushing to my head. Breathing heavily. Covered in my own semen. Noticing I forgot to take my good work clothes off. “This is no way to live” I muttered to myself. Then I got on my computer at looked at illicit pornography of men and horses and the process of degradation began anew without a fuck given in the world.

Man, all this masturbating feels like a second goddamn job. Every morning and every night my little man goes “HEY MOTHERFUCKER, WE HAVEN'T HAD SOME FUN YET, LET'S CHANGE THAT” and I'm like “NO FOR THE LOVE OF GOD LEAVE ME ALONE” but it won't. I just want to live a normal life and have normal conversations with people, but the entire time I'm talking to a customer at work about where to find the men's shoes the only thing I'm thinking is “I wonder if she's shopping for her husband. I wonder if his feet are small. You know what they say about big and small feet. I might have a shot. I MIGHT HAVE A SHOT, THAT DUDE MIGHT HAVE A TINY PECKER AND I CAN NAIL THIS WOMAN IF MY FEET ARE BIGGER THAN HIS.” And she might not even be that attractive. I'm just desperate. I don't know why, it's not like I truly know the carnal joys of sex since I only had it once in High School and it was FUCKING TERRIBLE. The only thing I recall was me being drunk and her crying and me going “OH JESUS THERE'S BLOOD DID I STICK IT IN THE WRONG HOLE OH GOD I'M GOING LIMP WHAT DO I DO FUCKING HELL” and that's it. I've never had any particular inclination or positive experience with sex, so why the obsession? I find it incredibly peculiar that there are people like me out there who haven't had much or any sex at all in their lives, yet are complete and utter slaves to their throbbing libidos. This isn't just my attempting at rationalizing my inability to get laid, so bear with me there's more to this.

Hell, maybe it's more like a drug addiction. I don't know what that's like, either. I binge-drank for a while in my youth, but I quit that cold turkey. I took a lot of Vicodin just to keep the shakes and growing pains off, but again I just ended up stopping that. Like any good drug addiction, there are visible signs of an addict suffering from a relapse. Sweaty and pale. His hands are no longer soft and delicate from excessive use of lotion (which explains the compliments people give me). His pants look like he's smuggling a ferret in them and he's twitching enough to make you believe it. He has a borderline obsessive fascination with household objects a normal person wouldn't consider would make for good sexual stimulation, like the radiator or toaster. And like every good drug addict, he'll go to more and more excessive lengths to get his fix because normal shit just doesn't cut it anymore at some point. It does nothing for him. He and his penis have to go on a fucking jihad through the anus of the internet just to find an oasis of sexual deviancy that will be enough to quench his thirst before he meanders to the next watering hole. It never stops. He'll either die before he makes it to the next stop or he'll eat his own dick to survive and then he can wonder what the fuck he's doing in the desert before going home and MAKING SOMETHING OF HIMSELF.

You may note the excessive use of the masculine pronoun in this discussion. That is because this is only a man's problem. What? It is, don't give me that bullshit. “Oh, I think about sex a lot too” you women say. No, there's a fucking difference. You women have wants. Men have needs. Women are commuters through sexual perversion, men are hostages. I don't want these thoughts, they're like the asshole children you get in the divorce settlement that you know are lost causes but are stuck raising them anyway as they slowly leech money, happiness, and hope out of your body. It makes perfect sense, because there are a lot of instances of sex or masturbation or sexual perversion where it's a lot like a Las Vegas marriage after a night of binging. Then you relapse into proper judgment and you tell yourself afterwards “Well, it seemed like a good idea when I was horny” as the post-wank shame starts to settle in and you frantically close all the incognito tabs on your internet browser riddled with Thai prostitutes, bestiality and vore while you just sit there. You sit there, and you think about what you've done, and you think about how you'll never be able to have a realistic, healthy, normal sexual relationship with another person because they don't meet your ridiculous standards of having a literal horse's ass while they perpetually lactate beer to compensate for the fact that they probably look like some misbegotten Godless heathen that reminds you of the evils in the world.

Honestly if I could, I would do away with sex entirely in my life. Life would be so much more convenient if I didn't have to have sex. It means that I wouldn't have to worry about being in a committed relationship or that I would be pissing away my hard-earned money on prostitutes.  But I can't stop, regardless of what I do or what happens.  I could cut off both of my arms and I would find a way. And the fact that I can say that is horrifying.  At this point the thought of it repulses me because it's been tainted by so many extremities and factors. It is an impure, horrific, disgusting experience.

Until I get a chance to do it again.