Distinct Flavor

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(did i blow your mind? huh??? this messed with your head, right? didja see the thing where time travel isn’t real coming? she told you! oh snap, she told you! if only you’d listened to that knowledgeable science expert! OHHHHHHH)

an orange light above a door to fanciful dreams.

a red light above a door to creation.

a broken light, formerly purple, above a door to hidden truths.

a blue light above a door to an older life.

a green light above a door to those who came before.

a bright yellow light above a door to a place of coming and going.

you wake up. you're a new person. you know... so many things. everything is different.

it's a bin full of bodies. they don't look like your body. you don't know what your body looks like. it's new.

that feel when you understand what this is just by looking. sulfur-32! decayed from radioactive phosphorus-32! so cool!

a hazmat suit full of spiders. no part of you is tempted to put this thing on.

a hallway that still reeks of smoke. you remember making some irresponsible decisions about fire!

a room full of beds. you remember sleeping here, burning things here, fleeing here, and dying here. it's an important room.

a mirror. you... don't know if you're a boy or a girl, or a woman, or a man, or... it doesn't matter, does it? you look great.

the mirror. you're still looking. it's pretty fantastic... but if you get tired of it, you can always change it.

a room still on fire. you're immune to fire, it looks like! that is SO RAD. the smoke bothers your nose, though. you kinda hate it.

a room that used to be yours. you burnt everything in it, so it's time to leave it behind.

a burning room. someone you used to hate is dead in there. you let yourself feel sad about it.

another burning room. you never knew caroline carolina that well. you hope she made it out okay, back during your rampage.

a bare flagpole. some part of this feels right, and some part of it feels sad... like a lot of things now, you suppose.

a lamp, glowing ultraviolet amidst licking flames. you can really SEE ultraviolet now, and that's PROBABLY the coolest thing ever.

the room where you worked hard on creating yourself. you remember dying here- but you didn't really die here.

a hole you dug, trying to escape from yourself. an evil, important, heroic, irrelevant, sad flag lies at the bottom.

a room full of dreams that never came true. maybe things would have gone differently if they'd had any success at all.

the room where you were born. for the... second time, by your count. you died here a couple times, too.

Option 1. Ingalls and your hungry mind are clinging to this one.

Option 2. Joshua and Mona, predictably, favor being in control.

Option 3. Katie, Al, and Dingo all pick this one. Should you count the kids as one? Should you count the dog at all?

It looks like Bradley has abstained from decision-making.

You look at the first option again. Should you obey your superior- not to mention what is, technically, yourself?

The second option. You could return these two to something like their normal lives, to make up for what you've done.

Again, the third option. How do you count the votes here? They might outnumber you.

Oh, Selmont's making a decision. It looks like he's... trying to pick between 2 and 3. If you add him as half a vote to each...

...It looks like 3 is the way to go, if you count everyone as one person.

Minds inside your mind. You touch them, and connect them to one another, tying together memories and personalities.

4/3/115: Option 1. New Galilee may yet rise from the ashes, if loyal Ultimate Spy follows orders.

4/3/115: Option 2. Unacceptable. Would not allow research to come to nothing.

4/3/115: Option 3. If we are to merge, I would need to join in order to smooth the process.

--- The perspective switches. ---

I take a look at option 1. I'm already a dead man, it seems, but do I really want to stay dormant forever?

I look over option 2. Those two seem decent, and I can't deny I'd like living with no responsibilities of my own.

I consider the third option. It's... scary. I don't want to lose myself, and be only an eighth of a person.

--- The perspective switches. ---

we're not ok with option 1! what kind of crazy talk is that?! we're not sleeping!

the second thing is maybe ok. we'd only be there when those guys wanted us, but we'd get to keep being us... could be boring.

number 3 sounds pretty rad! we get to skip to being an adult! and maybe being part dog! yeah!

--- The perspective switches. ---

>haha what >no i don't think being imprisoned inside a govt conspiracy forever is my idea of a good time

>like the sound of num. 2 >bodysharing setup w/my honey >idk tho >could wear thin. too much of a good thing

>no. 3. dang, what?! what would we even BE? sounds ****ed up >but maybe a fun ****ed up?

--- The perspective switches. ---

🐾 It is a thinking thingy! I have no idea what this people thinking thingy means!

🐾 Another people thinking thingy! This one smells like Friend Guy. I like Friend Guy!

🐾 This thinking thingy smells like Friend Guy AND kids who pet me! Yes!

--- The perspective switches. ---

*looks at first idea and decides it's no good!* ((bc i got things to do!))

*puts seal of approval on second idea* ((always bein w/the bae and also having shapeshift powers = yes))

The exit. You could walk out as... Joshua, or Mona. They, at least, have a place in the world. But what would you do with the rest of them?

The exit. You could walk out as the monster, and let its hunger control you. Your minds disagree violently about whether this is ok.

The minds... you have options. You feel your choices take shape as thoughts that you can touch.

The first option. You lock the others away, and try to live life as the you that you spent so long trying to find.

The second option. You hand over the reins to Joshua and Mona, and let them figure out how to live your life for you.

The third option. You let the others out, and allow the integration cascade to progress. You become... everyone at once.

The fourth option. You get in the trash compactor and turn it on. This... no, you discard this option.

A memory- a piece of knowledge- that she put in your head. You feel like you grasp how this works, now, not just the monster you.

The hunger. You feel it from the monster's mind, but it's no longer the one in control. It's just one among many, now.

Dormant minds inside you. They're all as strong as yours, as real as yours. Yet you- that, is, YOU- control them completely.

One of your own minds. It's cold, angry, and confused. You feel an inhuman confidence, and an impatience you don't recognize.

Your other mind, the one in charge. It's newly-made. You can feel the seams from where it was stitched together from broken parts.

Ingalls' mind. She's tied a piece of it to yours, feeding you understanding of what you are from the designs she developed.

Bradley's mind. You feel terror, anger, confusion, and weariness.

The kids' minds. You didn't notice before, but they've become so tied up with each other that they seem more like one mind.

Joshua's mind. You feel fascination, curiosity, and self-importance. It's less familiar, since it's new.

Mona's mind. It's pretty much the same as Joshua's, actually.

You feel Joshua's mind encroaching on your power. He should have been dormant! You-

4/3/115: Joshua's hand. His body just replaced Butcher's. Apparently he's figured out-

🐾/🐾/🐾: Oh boy! What's this?! It feels like thinking but it's people thinking?! It smells like a radical integration cascade!

>tfw we want in on the party and totally shove our way into things! >tfw there's KIDS IN OUR HEAD OH GOD

Your amorphous form. No! This is not alright! You need to stop them from-

*I feel someone shove her way into my head*

*Or maybe I feel someone shove HIS way into MY head?*

((I don't actually know what just happened. I think this was an accident?))

It's you. You look... human. All those years of trying to find her- find yourself, in this place...

Gah! I'm- I'm in the warehouse now, and a girl is holding my hand. It's... oh, this is Martha Butcher, the test subject.

A bloodstain, near the exit. I guess I didn't get far before she ate me. No wonder I didn't find anything pre-burned.

It's yourself. All you're noticing is that this guy needs glasses, badly. You should try someone else.

wha?! we can be three people at once?! this is the bomb!! also really spooky and wack but ALSO THE BOMB

With so many perspectives, you can finally tell which parts of yourself are you, and which parts are the monster.

You consider being the dog again, but decide to skip it. Sounds like a waste of time.

no we should be the dog! dawg! we can hear you thinking that!!!

🐾 It is two children! Ohhhh they want to pet me. Yes. I am a good boy. Ohhh these pets feel weird.

oh she turned into the dog! we- aw, we try to pet it but our hands just get all stuck and connected...

It's yourself. You just panicked and became her- did those children just control... you?

4/3/115: Hedgehog supertrees decaying. Always a danger, but if she'd been instructed how to use the power, it should have been safe.

It's Ingalls! She decoupled... on her own? She's looking at you sadly.

4/3/115: Instinct programming is suppressed by her new conscious mind. Without training, her neural security is vulnerable.

Muzzles. Same purpose as the straightjackets.

A dumpster full of the corpses of failed experiments. You still don't actually know where this came from.

...This one was Josephine. You guess... they rounded up the others and killed them after you escaped.

Well, not this guy. You killed this guy. He broke out of his own tank to try and stop you.

Josephine’s body. She’s... no. She’s been dead too long. It wouldn’t work.

Crates full of syringes. They used one of these on you, and look where that got you! Phobia justified, in your opinion.

>check display >see flashlight, belt buckles, phone, penlight, etc inside me >trippy

*look at spooky scary skeleton* *shiver goes down spine*

I look at the display as myself, and... oh. There's a sword in me. That explains why I've felt so stiff...

whooooooa look at our bones! that's crazy! our hand bones connect! also a bunch of junk inside us.

4/3/115: Hm. Skeletal mesh catalyst seems to be accommodating inorganics properly. Will call this a success.

🐾 It is a machine with lights! I don't understand any of these lights.

You withdraw all your forms and become amorphous. You've never really had a good look at your monster teeth. Yikes!

The hazmat suits. You still don't know why these are full of spiders. Maybe they just like enclosed spaces? An eternal mystery.

You look in the lockup, but just find some defective chemical shipments.

The fire I set in the trash compactor has burned out. Did... “I” make me do that, so people wouldn't be suspicious of the smoke I left?

The trash compactor. There was no reason not to indulge the fire man once you had yourself back.

The lingering scent of smoke. Documents you hoped would bring yourself’s memories back.

Ashes. It doesn’t matter that he burned those papers. You’ve read them all hundreds of times over the years.

4/3/115: There's no reason my substrate synthesis reaction WOULDN'T work on nonhumans, but the dog is still a surprise.

The painting in A3. You guess... this was just a regular painting, and not hallucinatory “art”.

An empty gasoline barrel. You drank this one a while ago. You needed fuel, and there wasn't much prey around. You metabolize it fine.

The bookshelf in B1 I emptied and burned.

The rubble blocking the 4 and 5 rooms. Once again, you had yourself see a mural to keep her from thinking something was wrong.

Another empty bed. The other test subjects slept in these. You can remember bring friends with Josephine, living here.

A bloodstain under a bed. This was...

🐾 It is the stuff that comes out of me when I get hurt! I got hurt bad by a monster when it tried to hurt Friend Guy and his mate!

*shudders a little*

((it found us in here and Dingo protected us while we ran away. he's such a good boy! sorry, Dingo!))

>tfw ur dog gets killed protecting u from a monster >and then you become that monster and eat ur dog >and then ur gf >feels bad man

*glomps the bae + says it's ok*

>tfw ur gf is neurally decoupled from u >and also when you hug ur flesh fuses everywhere you touch >feels. ****ing weird man

*literally can't stop hugging bf*

You decide that's enough of that. These semicoupled states end up getting you all mixed up.

The far wall. Not a wall, so much as a rockslide that crushed half the room. You had yourself see a mural, instead.

Fire, and smoke. You can breathe it fine, and your cells can withstand far hotter temperatures. It's no obstacle.

The charred remains of Roy Gustaf's office, still smoldering. You realize none of it was important. He was a crackpot.

Gustaf's skeleton. He locked himself in here out of fear that you'd eat him. A justified fear, you suppose. Looks like he starved.

4/3/115: Roy's skeleton. Serves the superstitious old bastard right.

>give a solemn salute to the visionary skeleton >rip >unless he wants to be in the skeleton war in which case i take that back

🐾 It is bones! Oh, I love bones! I am going to take one of these bones.

There is a bone in your mouth. You spit it out. You didn't even think you COULD eat that dog, not really.

Carolina's office is a roaring blaze. There's nothing left of her but a funny name, now.

The fallen chunk of ceiling. This was the first thing you noticed when yourself emerged, and you had to make her see art instead.

The bloodstain under the coffee table, from where you ate the kids.

holy crap!!! we got eaten here! we remember it now and it's scary!

The hole in the ceiling. The kids fell down from here, and you couldn't come up with a fake memory to explain how they survived.

the hole we dug in the big door. actually, we never did. how could we have done that? it's hella thick metal!

The hole you punched in the metal door. The kids didn't question their fake memory of digging this themselves.

The ashes of the recruitment flyers. It was after you ate Joshua that reading these was able to draw yourself out again.

>remember flyers >cringe at authoritarian rhetoric >you can't trust the government, stupid!

Your favorite recruitment flyer. You realized how much you loved it after feeling how much Joshua hated it.

The blazing reception desk. The memories you let yourself have to explain being here started with the receptionist.