Hello Cruel World, See You in Hell

The symptoms were ricked in a list in Beta’s “mind.” They rifled through the books, head bobbing as they scanned mutation medical textbooks at once. Medically speaking, the results were consistent with…

They closed the book and put it well out of sight.

Ramirez was a generally healthy person; a sudden illness was unlikely. After eliminating several background factors, they were left with one final result. Poison. If Not-Sheila was telling the truth, and accurately at that, then someone had done the unspeakable against her.

They gave the moth another hug.

It could not have been Jim, right? It could have been accidental? That is an unfortunate phenomena that happens. Ramirez was also an officer. There could be someone with a vendetta against her. There were many options they would rather it be. Jim was their friend, they trusted him with everything. Surely this was all some misunderstanding!?

Their horror caused them to stop petting the moth altogether. This could not be true. It had to be a misunderstanding. It had to be false.

Beta began to pace around the apartment, fans clunking. “Sheila,” they said, clicking. “Can you… describe the symptoms Ramirez experienced before her death?”

They did not know if this was a sick joke by the false-Sheila. But if it was true, there was a horrifying possibility that they could not shake. They walked back into the living room and pulled out a medical textbook. The necessary documents were already coded into them, but such a claim like this needed secondary proof.

The moth whined and did not respond for several minutes. Then, after another convulsive twitch, it began.

“It started with cramps. In her legs.” There was an eerie detachment in the moth’s tone. “She almost fell several times. Then her arms experienced the same discomfort. Soon she could not walk on her own. She complained most of her back. That is when she asked for an ambulance.”

“Ramirez?” Beta’s fans stopped all together. “She has… died? What has happened to her?” 

Though they were not as close to her as they were to Jim, they had grown quite fond of her. The news that she was dead hit them hard. Was the moth implying that Jim had hurt her? No, no… Jim was mad at her, but they couldn’t imagine that kind of violence! Not their friends!

“I don’t know, I don’t understand, but they had a fight.” The moth’s voice was quiet and fearful, and it began to tremble as it told the story.

“Then Admin got very calm. They had coffee and we went on a walk and Ramirez started to feel unwell. She had trouble walking and wanted to sit down. Admin wouldn’t let her. He made her keep going and took her into the Whispering Forest and then watched her die.”

“Okay, you ass. Bye.”

The moth was still for a moment. Then, it began to spark, and, with a disgusting squishy noise, exploded, leaving a burn mark on the floor and a mess of guts and cybernetic parts all over the room.

“Fuck you too,” Jim muttered, ignoring the mess in favor of picking up where 805 had left off.

[txt: • jim] No, no, no. Don’t tell me they got to you, too. Fucking shitheaded bastards. It’s not safe here, probably not there either. Can you meet me somewhere? [txt: • jim] Probably no one’s out at that boardwalk place, right? Since everyone insists it’s a hallucination? We can go there to talk. I think I’m okay enough to drive. Are you? Do you need me to pick you up?

Lucy blinked at her phone blankly for a long moment before she could attempt to text back.

[txt: Lucy] Jinn i dont know if i csn evdn leave mu bbed theres no no way i can drive i dontlnow whats hapoened oe what todo [txt: Lucy] wyhat happened to uou??

Jim was already out the door and headed down to his car when his phone buzzed.

[txt: • jim] Bastards took Sheila from me. [txt: • jim] Look I'm coming to get you, okay? We'll be okay, we'll figure this out. Just don't let anyone in who's not me. I'll text you when I'm there.

[txt: Lucy] ok

Would she even be able to open the door?  She hadn't been allowed last time.... but when was last time?  What was last time??  Entertaining that notion for even a moment and her head went spinning, and she felt even less inclined to ever leave this bed again.

“I have sent her the message,” they affirmed. “Another one will be sent if necessary.”

The moth was given another gentle hug. “It is not your fault,” Beta said, the joints of their fingers clicking as they moved. “If I encounter Jim, I could talk to him. He has not caused me harm before. We are friends.”

They were sorry for this poor thing, but they were not even sure that they were Sheila. And Jim was their long-time friend, there was more reason to trust them than the moth in their arms.

“I sent her a message,” they said, pointing to the flashing of their eyes. It has only been a few minutes, Sheila. She may be busy.”

It was just a quick: “Hello! How is your condition today? Is everything well?” That would be sufficient, they figured. If she did not respond in a reasonable amount of time, they would follow up/

“I saw her recently…”

“Did you tell her?” the moth asked anxiously. “Did you warn her?”

One of the moths flew into the window while the rest waited outside.

“Nothing we do is ever good enough for you,” it said, in a voice that blended pouting and indignant rasping. “Anyway, we held up our end successfully. No thanks to your information-hoarding. We did it, though.”

And, as if on cue, Jim’s phone went off.

“That’s because nothing you do is ever worth anything,” he sniped in reply as he walked over to his desk to check the message. [txt: Lucy] jim i need you im really conndfused and i dont know what to do plaese im ry scatteredeap i need you 7 need your help

As soon as they had carefully returned the apartment to its original place - that awful dog would no doubt be scratching and whining at the door pretty soon - Department 805 snapped back to their tower and took their primary vessel, Sara Hamilton, back over.

“Come, my pretties,” they rasped as a veritable cloud of modified moths descended on the office from the walls, ceiling, vents, basically every surface in the building that could adequately hide a moth (three workers had complained so far and all of them had been used to feed the moths, which used energy up like it was going out of style). “Let’s pay Jim a visit. This time we won’t have to break his door because he can’t ignore us.”

If anyone in Night Vale thought the moth swarm was unusual, they didn’t say so. This was probably the fifth cybernetic moth storm that week, knowing that town. Department 805 was endlessly amused by the fact that modern Strex activity went right under the town’s residents’ noses simply due to how little they thought of bizarre events.

All of the moths at once descended on Jim’s apartment and started throwing themselves at the windows, trying to get his attention.

Jim didn’t have music playing this time, and the pounding of the moths on the windows startled him so badly that he fell out of his chair.

“What the ever-loving fuck?!” He pulled himself to his feet and, after a moment of confused staring, threw the window open and stepped back.

“Sheila?” Beta trilled nervously as the moth began to quake in their arms. Did they need to be cooled down?! No, they were organic!  “Sheila, the light is absent. Strex is not located in Night Vale any more. Sheila?”

They took a while to formulate a response. “I am sure she is in prime condition. Lucy is a strong friend.” It was an assurance, but not to the moth. It was for themself. Was that a threat they were postulating? No, it couldn’t be.

“I am devastated to hear that happened to you. Please, let me provide aid. I can make you feel better.”

“Make sure Lucy is okay first! Please, Beta, find Lucy! I don’t know how long it’s been, I don’t know.”

The Not-Jim grinned and drove the scalpel down onto her head.

Just before it could reach her, Lucy woke up with a start.

She was laying down on her bed.  The gentle light of morning peeked through the bedroom window, along with the song of birds chirping outside.

At the foot of the bed rested an intricately made--and, happily, inanimate--plush version of Jim.  A jagged thread smile swept across its face underneath two black button eyes.  It held in its arms a plush Sheila, its threaded slits of eyes indicating gentle slumber

Around Lucy were the familiar smells and sights of home, and everything was back where it should be.

for as much as she had just startled, Lucy was terrified to move.  nights and demons, that nightmare was intense, to the point where she started to seriously doubt that it was a dream at all.

but why would she even entertain that, that was ridi--

she shuddered violently before she could even finish the thought.

where was she?  what was outside?  could she even look?  the last time she’d tried had almost...

she caught sight of the plush, and for a long time only stared at it with a tangled rush of emotion that almost made her sick.  so intense and confusing was it that she could hardly tell up from down, and it all felt so scattered that she almost dissolved into tears.

The android was still suspended in disbelief. Jim was their closest friend. Even when things were rough, they had never felt their safety in jeopardy. But what claimed to be Sheila was so fearful, like they had never seen the true one before.

The conflicting emotions began to make their cooling systems spasm, so they decided to sit down with the moth still wrapped up in a hug.

“Do you think it may be the remnants of Strex?” Beta’s mechanics clicked a regular rhythm, in an attempt to calm them down. “I do not know this Sara, but she is not here now. You are here with me.”

The moth stiffened. “Maybe. Sara worked for them before she died. And there was a light--” It twitched, suddenly, a sharp spasm that worked through its whole body. There was a moment of stillness, and then the twitching continued, growing more and more persistent. “Light and light and light and--and--”

Silence. The twitching subsided.

The Not-Jim hopped over to the table and climbed up Lucy, hovering right over her face, holding its gleaming scalpel high above her head yet still too close.

“Say you’ll find me,” it whispered.  “Say you’ll listen to everything I have to say.”

Everything around Lucy was shaking, like an earthquake.  Things were floating up off the counter and hanging in the air.  That light was coming in through the window in the living room, so bright Lucy could easily see it from the table, feel it, buzzing in her teeth and her bones.

The Not-Jim twisted the scalpel in its knotted silk hand as a bit of dried gore from the moth fell onto Lucy’s face.  Its chest was heaving, its breath like a crypt, its eyes still emitting a blinding light.  “Say it!  Say it and mean it!” 

everything was wrong, and every possible fiber of her being felt electrified and impossibly loose and every one of them shrieked and begged for peace, for destruction, to be ripped apart and turned inside out and just be through with this torment.

it could be through.  he’d promised it could be through.  he’d promised.

Just another push.

They woke Lucy up. Or maybe they just fed her more images and smells and sounds. At this point, there was hardly a difference between reality and false hells.

She was still strapped down, but this time, to the kitchen table. Not-Jim was over on the counter, covered in drying viscera, toying with the same scalpel Jim had wielded in the dream.

“The subject is not cooperating,” said that stern voice from everywhere as the Not-Jim sharpened - cleaned? - the implement. “The subject will be decommissioned and the experiment cancelled. Elimination is imminent.”

Not-Jim turned toward Lucy. Its former button eyes were pits of starlight, staring deep into Lucy’s mind, past the traces of its static protector that now cowered in its fringes, defeated.

“You should not have done that,” it said, in Jim’s voice. “You should have listened to me.”

she startled out of the diffused light and back into a harsh light, and something bit at her wrists.  frantically she tried to blink the light out of her eyes, but as she did she realized she was in her own kitchen, its overhead light impossibly bright, and she was on--

no.  no, her nightmare was never this cruel, there was no way--

that voice redirected her panic.  decommissioned, what did that mean, why would she be--?

805 barked triumphantly at the retreating voidstuff, then took up the metaphorical controls of Lucy’s brain.

“There’s no need for this nightmare to continue,” Jim said to Lucy. His voice was calm, friendly, inviting, everything good that Jim could be. “It can be over, right now. Your apartment can be back where it was. Even Sheila, if you want to see her again. It’s not impossible.”

The rest of the figures receded, and only Jim was left, suddenly not in medical scrubs but in his usual yellow hoodie. No longer was the light harsh and clinical - now it was heavenly. Powerful, but benevolent, like summer rays viewed from the safe, cool shade.

Sheila was perched on Jim’s shoulder, no longer broken or hurt or even upset. She was whole, and happy, and chirping some sweet song as Jim spoke.

“Find me in my apartment,” Jim said, “and when you do, you need to do everything I say. Only then can this nightmare come to an end. And it will, I promise. But only if you do what I tell you to do. Okay?”

And now, after putting up with all their torment in the physical world, Lucy couldn’t resist 805′s will mentally, either.

she wanted to say yes.  yes, just listen to Jim, and all of this would be over, it would all be over if she just listened to–

“Admin experienced an error, you have to hide!”

that made her blink against the haze…  haze?  no, it was only this nice light–

light?  there was that light outside the window.  the programmers were outside the window.

“The answer is simple, user Lucy, to destroy–”

he wouldn’t do that, would he?

“–and to return you to your–”

no.  it was ridiculous.

“There are no safe places, it’s for your own good.”

it was ridiculous.

“I know better than you.”

wasn’t it?