Freakality's Domain

A strong warrior confidently approached the seated King. The King looked at him intrigued and asked “What do you seek in my kingdom?”

The man raised his head, smiling, and proceeded to reply in a playful manner “I seek a way to prove the prowess of my weapon, my lord.”

Puzzled, the King called his guards up front, who sheathed their swords in unison, and once again he spoke “My guards are the mightiest warriors I know, if you wish to prove yourself in battle, this challenge should be more than enough.”

The warrior raised an eyebrow and giggling he replied “I don’t think you understand, my lord. My weapon is sharp and fierce, and your guards are no match to its power.” The room fell silent. “I wish for a bigger challenge.”

A loud laugh engulfed the room. The jovial King, upon hearing what he truly believed to be foolish remarks, shook his head. “If you truly find yourself to be above this challenge, I dare you to show us so, as I don’t trust your arrogance as proof of your skill.”

“So be it.”

The guards attacked swiftly, focused on the brash warrior that stood in front of them, while the King closed his eyes, trying not to witness the demise of the warrior.

Clangs and thuds roared through the room for a brief moment, and quickly stopped.

Slowly, but surely, the king opened his eyes, now prepared to see the result of overconfidence in battle, and yet, he did not expect to open them so widely.

In its stead stood the warrior, sporting a disinterested look on his gleaming, spotless face, surrounded by all the guards grunting on the ground.

The King stood in disbelief, yelling “Impossible! What is this weapon you wield, and how is its strength so to take down my entire army in mere seconds?!”

Silence. The man stared impatiently at the King, who shared his sentiment. It was obvious that the only way to see the weapon in action would be to offer the challenge he sought.

“Fine!”, belched the King, “Face me in combat.”

The two men stood in front of each other for the longest time. The King holding the handle of his sword tightly, as sweat dripped from his forehead.

When the tension couldn’t grow stronger, the King raised his sword with a war yell, as his gaze didn’t leave the hands of the warrior.

The warriors hands finally raised the fabled weapon.

The King could do nothing but stand aback. The mightiness of the weapon wasn’t apparent. It was but a pen. A literal pen, dipped in ink.

“What is the meaning of this?” inquired the perplexed King. “Is this a joke of some kind?”

“No”, the warrior stated, “It is what it is.”

The King began to grin. Then he began to snicker. And then finally laughed hysterically. “I see what this is all about. Is this some staged lesson on the mightiness of the pen against the sword?” he supposed, “Because if so, I am much too old to be in need of such childish tales.”

“Not at all, my lord.” the warrior began, “This is not a lesson, and it’s not for you. Although, this is in fact a tale, so I applaud your ingenuity in finding that out.”

The old man’s grin disappeared as his confusion takes over, “I don’t understand.” he manages to get out.

“This tale is not meant for you, my lord” he explained, “You are merely part of it. And I am in control of its structure. You are the King of nothing but an imaginary domain to explore the power of my words.”

The old man looked back and saw the warrior in his robes, sitting on his throne.

“If I so desired, I could become the King in your stead, but the real skill that comes in brandishing such a weapon is in the restraint one applies to the coherence and structure of the story.” said the warrior to the King, who sat at his usual place in the throne. “Your character is just a tool for me to exposit on the themes of the story, and now that the revelation has occurred, your role only becomes smaller and smaller.”

“But after this tale is over…” the King starts pondering nervously, “…what would happen to me?”

The warrior smiled. “Worry not, my nameless lord, for your existence, alongside all of your kingdom, would have served its purpose well. But indeed, once the entirety of this tale is finished, you, me, and all of the people your made up mind seems to remember, would also cease to exist.”

The King falls to his knees, distraught at the realization, but one more question comes to mind: “What do you mean ‘you’? I thought you were the one that was writing this story.”

“Oh.” the man sighs, “No, my lord, I am but a figment myself. The only difference is that my role is a projection of the real writer of this tale. Another mere tool to make this story come to life.”

If the previous realization hadn’t sent the mind of the King into a spiral, this one would definitely achieve it.

Thus, the last question of the King in the story he populated came to be: “But… how do you cope with knowing that?”

[Inspired by Frozenbyte’s ‘Trine’]

Cecilia Lopez’s Letter:

[Translated from Spanish]

To protect and serve.

The words by which many of the police forces describe their duty to the people.

Also the first of my final words on this world.

To protect and serve.

By now you probably know a lot of what you’re going to read, but this should potentially serve a higher purpose. So I’ll start from the beginning…

Ever since I was a child, I was set on becoming a police officer. I needed to protect the ones that couldn’t protect themselves, for the sake of the ones before. My friends. My neighbors. My family.

But my younger self would scream her ears out if I told her what I’ve seen now. I’ve seen how little we seem to care about others when we want too much for ourselves.

I’ve seen how little power is needed to corrupt one’s mind until it’s unrecognizable and the lack of empathy that it spawns.

But no matter how much the world seems to test me, I wouldn’t let it break me.

“Stand tall, firm and wise; and no wind, no matter how strong, will take you down.”

Those words appeared in my way just a few days after I had lost it all. After those monsters had taken all that once mattered to me.

Those are the words of Wing Zhu. A somewhat short lived Chinese philosopher from the early third century BC.

How I know this isn’t as much of an interesting story as what he wrote, but I do find certain wonder in hind sight as to how it happened.

I remember that first day in the orphanage. The day I ran away to the library, only so I could cry silently, where no one would touch my shoulder, look me in the eyes with their empty stare and lie through their teeth.

“Everything’s going to be alright.”

That day I kept my head buried in my arms, until I looked up for no real reason.

My eyes locked on one book. The golden letters drawing me in. And for the briefest of moments, my grief stopped.

“LOSS” by Zhu Wing.

I don’t like admitting that I broke the law, but in that moment, it seemed important, so I took the book.

I did return it after a while, and nobody actually noticed it was gone, but I won’t pretend it was a good thing I did.

I read that book day and night. Once I finished it, I read it again, and every time I did, the words resonated more and more with me.

“Loneliness and loss go hand in hand…” he would say, but then, just when I needed to hear it: “…to accept loneliness is to be lost. Don’t. Trust me.”

The way he’d write his wisdom implied familiarity. Like we were just friends sharing our problems over a beer in a bar. The best friend I ever had, yet we lived over two millennia apart.

But I’ve written far too much about him for now, and my time is running thin.

The bottom line is that all of his words, experiences and tales drove me to sign up at the academy as soon as I turned 18, and the future never looked brighter.

The academy was as idealistic as my mind had painted the experience to be.

Every act was important in theory. Every situation meant life or death.

I enjoyed it, because even if it was all pretend, it was pretending to have a purpose.

Sadly, reality is not as black and white.

When I started in the department, my eyes still glittered with determination. I was willing to do whatever necessary to help the defenseless. To protect their rights.

I was assigned to my partner, Armando Dimas.

His first words painted the picture I was going to live for the rest of my life: “Do what I say, and keep your mouth shut.”

If there was a man that embodied all the things that are wrong with power, it was him.

It wasn’t long before I saw his first moral abomination take place.

A bank robbery was in process. We were close to the location, so we called it in and quickly drove towards it.

By then, I am determined to make a difference. I still believed it is possible.

That wouldn’t last long.

We reached the bank and we managed to see the suspects drive away, so we gave chase.

Their vehicle was fast, but I had studied the city during my time in the academy, so I knew every shortcut I could possibly take to cut them off, and I was on the wheel. They were not going to escape me.

I told Dimas to call for backups, but he just told me to shut up and radioed in that “everything is under control”. I didn’t know what that meant by then.

Unsurprisingly, I managed to catch up to them and stop them right in their tracks. The two suspects got out of the car, and they pointed their guns at us. 

I could see their hands shaking, and in that instant I knew. Fakes.

I told that to my partner, and he smiled. He lowered his gun and started walking towards the suspects.

“I know they’re fake. Give me the money.”

Their faces were as pale as a sheet of paper, and shortly thereafter, they did.

Dimas took the bag off their hands, and then walked back to the car to drop it.

Their hands still up, I take out my handcuffs and head towards them, but…

“What are you doing?”

I turn my head, confused. I’ll never forget the words he said next…

“Get in. We’re out of here.”

My eyes widened and, immediately, I yelled at him. “We need to arrest them!”

His face tightened for a few seconds, and then looked at the suspects.

“Get out of here, both of you.”

The suspects looked at each other, baffled.

I couldn’t believe it either. “Don’t!” I yelled at them.

When I averted my eyes from them, I saw Dimas and felt a hard slap across my face. “You do what I tell you to do. Understand?”

I was in shock. My gun lowered, not because I had obeyed, but because my arms wouldn’t respond to my commands anymore.

I felt Dimas’ grip on my arm, tightening so hard that I still feel it today, dragging me into the car and sitting me down.

The last thing he said to the two robbers was: “Gentlemen.”

And we departed.

The entire way back to the police station felt like it lasted an eternity. The long wait was only disturbed by the radio kicking in, asking about a report on the situation.

“Subjects escaped.”

My breathing was speeding up. I felt like I was about to faint.

“I was going to give you a part of the pay, but until you learn to listen, it’s all mine. Understand?”

The rest of my body went limp. All but one part. I felt the grip of my fist. My nails digging deep into the skin of my hands.

The moment we arrived on the station, I knew what I was going to do. With God as my witness, I was going to report this monster to the higher ups.

I went straight to the office of my superior, Santiago Valera, and told him everything that had happened while he listened very intently.

After I was finished, he picked up his phone and pressed a button. “Please call Officer Dimas into my office, right now.”

We silently waited for that monster to enter, until we heard the door creak. I stood up, and stared intently into his vacant eyes.

Valera looked at him and asked, “Can you tell me what this is all about, Dimas?”

“Boss, I’m sorry, I thought it wouldn’t come to this.”

“You told me you could do it, but she’s proving to be too much for you to handle, we can take care of it the hard way…”

“I don’t think it will come down to that. Isn’t that right, Ms. Lopez?”

I…

I didn’t think I would feel so dumbfounded twice in one day, but worse yet, so helpless.

I left that office completely defeated.

And I questioned if I could go on like this.

But those words resonated in my head.

“Stand tall, firm and wise…”

If I was to make a change, I’d need to be brave enough to endure this moral hell I was living in. I would have to brave enough to keep my head low to such injustice. To climb my way up from this dirty mountain, and wipe it clean from the top. If I wanted to protect the defenseless, first I needed to bring justice to the lawless.

And by God, I was going to do it.

The bank story repeated itself far too many times than I would like to admit. Murders would go unsolved, only because the murderer himself would pay the monster next to me; and eventually, all of that money would lead to me. I have enough money in that hole in my closet to retire and move to England, perhaps in my own castle. But that money would never be spent. Not then, because of my moral stance; and much less now, because of my limited time.

I remained strong for over 4 years, and I witnessed my old boss retire, and Dimas take over.

Dimas designated me to another old partner, Tomas Zambrano, because, in his words: “I was not yet to be trusted.” To this day, I don’t know if he has ever suspected my real intentions.

But I remained strong. I kept doing what I was told. Even when Dimas himself would call on us, and force us to do something horrible.

But I wasn’t prepared for what happened yesterday.

A report came on the radio about a lead on a missing person case. Sara Martinez, 15 years old.

Sara, if you ever get to read this, I hope you can forgive me for not fighting enough to help you. I tried. I really tried…

I had heard of her case earlier. Seen the posters. Seen the parents cry on TV. But I wasn’t prepared to witness what I saw when I met her.

It was late in the afternoon and we were called to investigate in Santa Fe, about three blocks east away from the church. It was a blue house, white gates.

Even before we entered, everything seemed to be going wrong. Zambrano was fidgety. As usual.

“Stay in the car until I tell you to get out.”

So I did.

He knocked on the door and a buffed and tall man opened it. I saw them shake each other’s hands. Of course they were shaking their hands. By then, I was used to it all.

He signaled me to go in, so I did.

And I saw them all. Girls. Young. So young, all of them.

I kept my mouth shut, because I knew that I had to.

“So, is the Martinez girl here?” asked Zambrano, as nonchalantly as I never though those words could be uttered.

The man nodded. “Want to check her out?”

“Sure.”

I remained static in place. Only moving my eyes between the talking men. Referring to it all with such familiarity it was sickening.

The man led Zambrano towards a door. He inserted a key into the lock and opened it ever so slightly.

In that moment, I saw her.

I looked inside that door, and I could see the despair in her face. Her legs laying softly on the bed, with her messed up hair and bloodstained face hanging from her thin neck.

That moment wouldn’t end.

My fists were once again drawing blood out of my hands.

Suddenly, she looked up, and our eyes met, ever so briefly. Her tears quickly filling hers until her entire face cracked under pressure. She saw me. She saw my uniform. But all it did was bring more sadness to her face.

She had seen it too many times before. And to her it no longer meant what it meant to me.

I realized then, that to me it no longer meant what it once meant.

And then the moment ended.

Her eyes looked elsewhere. To the similarly uniformed man entering the room.

My partner was now inside, and the door closed behind him.

In my head there was only silence.

I stood there, looking at that closed door. The men around me and those other poor girls were no longer audible.

Soon enough, I heard it. I heard her screams. Her moans. Her cries for help.

They seemed to be out of pure repetition. She no longer believed in those words she was yelling.

Help wouldn’t come... But I had to be brave.

I had to stop myself from doing anything stupid.

I listened on and on to the painful sounds. My heart beating faster and faster as the noises grew louder and louder…

And with a loud masculine moan, they stopped momentarily. Quickly replaced by soft crying whimpers.

The door then opened.

Her eyes were now hidden in the sheets that she used to cover her face. Soft sounds of pain come out through them.

And coming out of the room was him…

And I just couldn’t…

I wasn’t brave enough.

I just had to push that trigger.

And that loud bang marked the looming end of my world…

My eyes set on Sara’s small figure jolting up from the bed, I notice from the corner of my eye, the buff man taking out a gun.

As soon as his limp body hit the ground, shots started flying towards me.

I ran and hid behind the entrance of the place, and I shot back. In hindsight, that was even more foolish. I might have gotten a lot of those girls killed…

Oh, lord, please tell me I didn’t...

But I couldn’t stop myself. All I had in my mind was that young girl, defenseless, inside that room.

And I had to save her.

I shot a few more times. Another one down.

I fought back, as well as I could.

Please, Sara, you have to believe me. I did…

But then I heard it.

“Dimas, she’s one of yours! That crazy bitch is shooting up the place!”

I gasped internally when I realized what that meant. They were on their way. And in my despair, I felt it.

A bullet grazed my arm.

I screamed in pain, and I held my arm with my free hand.

And in that moment, out of a sudden, it was all so clear... I remembered right then...

“A battle is not lost until the last step of your plan has failed.”

This was not the battle…

I’m so sorry, Sara.

But before I die, I must win this fight.

I must be brave enough to wait… Even in death.

It may not be today, and it may not mean to save you, but justice goes beyond that.

I am truly sorry.

But I had to run away. I had to be strong enough to run away, come here and write this.

So here I am, in this library, writing this as fast and as thoroughly as I can.

I know by now that my place has been ransacked, and that Dimas’ men won’t stop until they find me, and there’s little I can do about it.

But I hope all of this knowledge, my obvious to be mysterious death, and the words of the book you’ll find this inside of, are enough to bring change to this dirty and horrifying world.

And most of all, I hope Sara’s fate is not yet sealed before this surfaces.

I will be calling as many newspapers as I can, hoping that at least one of them will take me seriously. And hope that if Dimas’ hands reach as far as any of them, they won’t be fast enough to find it before you do…

Whoever you are.

Please, make this information soar.

Loud and far.

It’s the only step I have left to make. To protect the defenseless.

All the names I’ve mentioned need to be done justice. Be it the horrible monsters that work or worked at the station needing to be locked up, and that defenseless girl, hopefully still alive, needing to be brought back to her loving parents…

Next to this letter, you must have found a photo of me, my fingerprint in ink behind it, and a piece of foam with my dental marks. It’s all I could think of to supply the fact that it is truly me who has written this.

Also, my badge and I.D. has been taped under the shelf where you have found this book.

I truly hope this will be enough…

This is my last move. The next one is yours.

And as Master Zhu would’ve put it: "Purpose lingers on until all hope is lost.”

With hope, Officer Cecilia Lopez.

[Loosely inspired by Gaijin Games’ “Bit.Trip Beat”]

[Inspired by Broken Rules’ “And Yet It Moves”]

One look at the long and plain horizon, and his eyes glistened with joy and wonder.

This courageous warrior, weapon in hand, is eager to begin his adventure. And when he can’t conceive being stalled in place no more, he takes the first step.

The first step of a journey that lasts a lifetime.

His mind races as it shows him the battles yet to come. A dangerous and treacherous world that contains within its depths the highest reward imaginable.

One look to his side, and his eyes get lost in the empty terrain that goes on and on beyond the realms of possibility, so he turns his head.

And it happens, yet again.

His hand is shaking as the fear engulfs him whole, he was warned once before, but the experience was ten times worse.

He stays in place, but the clock does not. His heart beats faster, and his breath follows along.

Suddenly, the once hopeful horizon turns dark.

The joy and wonder is replaced by uncertainty and sadness.

The life he once craved now seems so much more difficult than it seemed. The field that lay beneath his feet now sat silently and menacingly as it stared back into the eyes of the nearly defeated warrior.

He briefly considers taking his step back.

The step that once marked the difference between his world then and his world now, in hindsight, appears to be a mistake.

His hands go limp.

Memories begin flooding back in from the times those other warriors told of lands filled with excitement. Sudden happenings flourishing from the mountains. Depths of caves filled with a rich darkness that incited feelings of dread, of valor, of adventure.

And here he was. An empty land. The wonder dissipates and leaves only the dread. The dread of the known unknown. The high amount of nothingness that accentuated the lack of skill and experience of this warrior, now almost certainly no more in the making.

The sun sets behind him, and in that moment he realizes that he can no longer remember what made him want to do this in the first place.

What part of this journey seemed worth the skill and endurance needed to commence it?

He doesn’t know anymore.

There are other warriors, he thinks to himself. There are other warriors more skilled to take on these plains. To make them flourish into the voyage they entail.

He’ll hear about them later. There’s no need to start his own. That’s what he tells himself.

How foolish had he been to come so under-prepared and under-equipped to take on such a colossal venture?

And then he remembers.

He looks down to his hand, and his weapon is still tightly grasped.

He notices.

That is all he needs.

He looks up again, and the plains look as wonderful and brilliant as they once did.

He stares at one spot in the faraway plains. One small spot in the larger world he has found himself in.

The empty space doesn’t taunt him anymore. The empty space feels just perfect now.

So he raises his weapon to its ready position, and just attacks.

As soon as he begins his slash, he sees it.

A hole starts forming where the empty space then laid. The clear plains start to turn golden, and rocks begin to rise as the weapon continues its brief, but poignant movement.

And then it’s done. The attack has finished, and he can now see it clearly. Where he once stared and saw a patch of nothingness, now lay a fully formed cave. Its entrance seemed as enticing as he had once heard of others to be.

A tear begins to form in his eye. His jaw drops to the ground. And in that moment, he feels it. He is where he belongs.

So he stands, he stays in place in awe of the power of his weapon as he stares at the cave. The one distinguishing feature in the otherwise unremarkable plains.

He feels intrigued by what lay inside it, and now more than ever, he needs to know. So he moves towards it…

But his legs don’t bring him closer to it. The cave seems as far away as it once was. Moving his legs just wasn’t enough.

He is baffled by this. The darkness taunts him now, as the emptiness itself did before it, but…

But now he’s armed. Now he knows he can do things he once thought impossible.

So he points his mighty sword towards the entrance, and his eyes widen when he sees what occurs.

The cave itself begins moving towards him. The darkness begins to engulf him, but he can see every crack, every rock, and every path that is inside. He moves through the cave as if he knew exactly where to go. His weapon both leads him and is led by him. Every small movement of his arm results in a new and exciting discovery.

He sees a chest in one room. The chest suddenly opens and reveals its shiny treasure. He is tempted by it. He knows that if he just takes that and stops his journey he’ll feel satisfied, but he knows that what lay at the end of this journey is worth much more than such a feeble return with a short quest preceding it.

So he moves on. He points his weapon towards another place and he keeps moving.

Soon he reaches an exit.

Some dread begins to dawn on him again, but with such a powerful weapon, the fear is easily washed away by his confidence.

He exits the dark depths of the cave and finds himself in a large place.

Plains. Yet again.

He looks around him, and the empty horizon presents itself once again. With the minimal exceptions being the place that he emerged from, and far away, he can see, its essential entrance.

Before this, he might have found himself again drowning in the fear that tried to kill him once before, but now he sees the power he possesses in his hands. Now he looks around and only sees potential.

So he raises his hand once again, weapon palmed, and slashes.

This time, he sees a little leaf come out of the ground. That leaf begins to get higher and higher. The little branch that was once weak and short is now merely a forgotten part of a larger entity. A mighty tree stands in its place.

But it wasn’t just the one.

More and more trees start to sprout quickly from the ground. The greenish pastures begin to fill the empty space between them, and before he could even notice, he had standing in front of him a dense forest, comprised of many of these mighty trees.

He takes one look at the forest and he knows that there is adventure inside it. He blinks. He looks again.

He sees a road inside the forest he could swear wasn’t there before, but now there is a way to start his adventure inside it.

He doesn’t even try to move his legs this time, by now he might as well have forgotten he had any in the first place. Naturally, and with little hesitation, he points his weapon towards the road, and the forest moves around him.

He sees animals fade into existence as he moves through the blossoming flora. Little birds have occupied these once nonexistent trees, and monkeys swing from them as if they knew them by heart. And then a…

He stops.

A beast now lays in front of him. Menacingly staring at… somewhere.

He turns his head and he sees him.

A hunter lay there, with bow and arrow, with his eyes intently focused on the beast. His mouth salivating as if he hadn’t eaten for weeks. The beast looks at him back, saying with its look that it won’t go down without a fight.

He looks ahead again, and he notices something he finds interesting.

His weapon is still moving.

He hasn’t stopped moving his weapon ever since he entered the forest, and so, to aim his attention to the tense situation at hand, he forces himself to stop. And so they do.

As soon as his sword stops moving, the hunter, the beast, the trees and the animals do as well.

He looks at his frozen moment in time, and he can see it all. Every cranny in the trees, every hair in the living beings that once moved so lively. He finds the picture beautiful.

But it’s not enough.

This can’t end like this. This is something he needs to see to its conclusion.

And so his weapon moves again.

The hunter readies his arrow.

The beast prepares to lunge at the attacker.

The arrow flies through the air, dead set to hit the beast’s head.

The beast opens its mouth and breaks the arrow with its teeth, just as he makes his deadly jump.

But then the warrior has an odd thought.

Neither the hunter nor the beast have noticed him at all.

He is but a fly on the wall in this eventful confrontation.

The hunter ducks under the beast, as he turns his head half a circle towards the beast again. Midway through the movement the hunter’s eyes align with his, but no acknowledgment is received.

The beast lands from his jump, but he’s too slow to react. The hunter has already readied another arrow and shot it before the beast could do anything to stop it.

The arrow has mortally wounded the creature, and now it whimpers silently until the last of its life draws through its breathing.

The hunter kneels in front of the beast, and caresses it softly, presses his head to the beast’s, and draws a big breath. The hunter yells as hard as he can. And as soon as the woods are silent again, more people, dressed as he is, appear from their hiding spots.

They work together to raise the now motionless beast on their shoulders, and carry it out of sight.

The warrior stands in awe of the event that had unfolded so cleanly right in front of his eyes, and now he’s ready to continue.

He once again raises his hand and points his weapon to the front, and the forest begins to move again.

He believes the exit might be close now, but he has an idea.

This is all very interesting indeed, but if he has the control he believes he has, then, why remain so close to a place so similar to what he knows?

And with that thought, the world changed.

Instantaneously.

The trees were no more. In its place there were shapes.

They had depth, and texture, but it was impossible to describe. The colors weren’t static, and the shapes weren’t permanent. They had nowhere to stand. The space beneath it was all dark.

A platform lay beneath him, but it wasn’t only there. He could see the world repeat itself through its space.

It was impossible.

But it was right there.

Blinding lights shone throughout the place, coming from nowhere at all except everywhere. It was a land that transcended the dimension it was on.

He couldn’t comprehend it, but it existed.

He stared at his creation, marveled at its existence, and imagined a spiral that led into madness.

He pointed his weapon towards the center and the world moved and moved around him.

The spiral spun and spun, it went long and far. It was a tunnel, but only in its interior. It once looked flat, but now existed in its three dimensions.

And as it went on for so long, the colors began to morph. They began to shine and spell out wordlessly different feelings. And as these feelings exploded in his mind, they began to fade away, and soon, it stopped.

He was out.

In front of him laid the plain, but it had ended.

It had a clear line. An edge.

He had seen the plain to its limit.

The blank space had been conquered.

So he raised his mighty weapon, dropped it in victory, and felt the reward he longed for.

The world morphed into the words it really was.

The mighty pencil laid on top of them, his hand now resting limply on the table.

The warrior smiled shyly to nobody but himself. His happiness showing only through the words that had come through him before.

The world he created is now real. It exists now not only for himself. It is part of a much grander world.

The plains of the page, now filled with adventure, tension and love, are there for anybody who dares to enter them. It exists in the mind of those who hear the tales of the warrior.

His plains have ended, but only for now. His journey continues.

The journey of a writer lasts a lifetime.

For it is a journey through the emptiness of the blank page, and as one learns to find the potential in its vacuum, it becomes part of who he is.

He is the warrior of art.

The blank page, once his rival, now his trusted ally.

This warrior now fights himself to fill the void of the page, and his reward becomes the world itself.

And the only tools he needs are his thoughts…

[Inspired by Exploding Rabbit‘s Super Mario Crossover]

Nostalgia is a word that describes the feeling of longing and want of certain moments in the past that we consider happy. A moment that incited in its occurrence a positive reaction in our brain. It released chemicals that made us feel as such. As such, the brain is basically trained to understand the memory of such a moment as yet another thing to consider positive. But after the fact, it is nothing but a moment, the occurrence is past gone. It’s recorded data. In computer programming, a variable is a place in the memory that is symbolically expressed with a name. Such location can contain any quantity of information, as limited by the size of the memory, but the information itself does not describe the variable. In the lowest level of application, any type of data can replace the value of such variable, as the variable itself is nothing more than a way to know the place where such information is stored. The computer creates the idea of a variable as a way to simplify the managing of the value in it. It is nothing but a convenience for the sake of functionality. The computer creates no attachment to such data.

Nostalgia is, psychologically speaking, a type of melancholy that influences the brain in various ways. Its understanding seems to be, considering how complex the inner understanding a brain to itself can be, both as a convenience, for the sake of using past experiences of safe and positive reinforcement of behavior; and as an affliction, a way the brain copes with the anxiety behind the deeper understanding that the present is, by comparison, negative. Such feeling is internally perceived as an anachronistic feeling of love and pain for things that were once part of our lives, but not anymore. Yet externally, but more accurately, socially, though, we have come to paint the concept of nostalgia as a mirage formed in the adult mind, romanticizing a now distorted past, that while static, can’t be observed ever again in the same context. Nostalgia is the happy remembrance of a moment in life. A redirection of the brain to a hidden path.

Computer science includes a type of data we call pointers. Pointers are similar in concept, but completely different in application to variables. In its broadest definition, a pointer is a place in memory that contains data that alludes to another place in memory. In reality, a pointer is in itself a variable of which its value is that of another location. Data that includes an address, a path leading to a final value. But a notable feature of such a data type, is that through its nature, it is entirely within the realm of possibility, and applicability, to create pointers that lead to other pointers, and subsequently, such pointers can lead to yet other pointers. The path to the data can be long or short, but the computer always assumes that there is a value at the end.

It is a known fact that how we remember things in our brain isn’t as clearly defined as remembering the event itself, but the last occurrence of the moment of remembering the event. In a nutshell, we remember the last time we remembered, not the actual thing we’re remembering. Such process occurs soon after the event occurs, as present is quickly becoming past, and the way our minds record information, by nature of time itself, is a recollection of memories of past small bits of information, becoming part of a set. Such set, then won’t even by itself have been a recollection of memories of the event itself, but the constant recollection of the smallest possible event prior as it affects the smallest possible event afterwards. A memory, then, is a path, that leads, in its higher level, to a moment; but in its lowest level, such path, leads to a longer, but narrower path that constitutes the process of the memory of a moment. The moment, or more accurately explained, moments, themselves having long before disappeared from our memory, to be replaced by a more poignant, new, and coherent recollection of them all.

Variables, or more distinctly, their values, are capable of being compared to one another in terms of length, size and overall properties. The reason behind it is the constant need for a code to change its behavior depending on the context such values bring to its execution. The value of a variable may be constantly changing into a different form throughout its manipulation, and perhaps, a code may require to limit how long such manipulation must occur. So through conditionals, we consider the possible actions the execution of the code must go through, depending on certain values of certain variables. Such values may even be changed during such actions, and lead to new conditionals. Data is being constantly replaced and constantly compared to maybe reach a fuller, and more complete value that represents a needed piece of data. By the time such data appears, the original state of the variable is no more.

The memory in our brains, in its nature, is hardly ever static. It is a known fact that our brain deletes information at a high pace as new information is constantly archived anew. Yet we still possess memories. Every new thought is somehow compared in relevance, age and current interest as new information is then placed to replace stagnant old information; which we now know, is not archived as it was originally perceived, but constantly erased to bring up the latest way in which we remembered it as such.

A pointer, perhaps, that leads to the original thought, the variable. But no, that thought is already gone. A pointer that leads to a variable that once was a pointer. Seems more likely, yet harder to process. In truth, the fact that a pointer is always a variable brings interesting insight to such proposition. The space in memory has be repurposed. There is always a pointer, because a pointer is the process of remembering, but soon after the pointer reaches its destination of the variable it is searching for, the nature of remembering, makes that pointer into the variable itself, and it is up to us, to create a pointer to that new pointer, that now possesses part of the value of the variable it once pointed to.

Such a complicated process.

Memory is malleable. Every thought somehow, by the process itself, is no longer the original. It changes. It becomes a new idea. Yet properties remain. We may think it’s positive. And it was. It was a property of the original thought, most likely. But, at some point, we might not even remember why it was positive. Probably because the thought of ‘why’ didn’t have enough relevance.

Then why do we give the ‘why’ such high relevance now?

Nostalgia tells us it was good. The thought itself, contains the value of a positive experience. Our behavior was changed by the context of such realization, we conditioned ourselves to consider the moment, through the context of our environment, to be acceptable.

Such environment, and other values, will definitely change. And the ‘why’ will be lost forever, of each and every single one of those.

But we fail to understand the power of the innate effect of the moment itself that made it seem positive in the first place. Because now that the memory of the memory is a variable, so is the nostalgia of the memory itself.

Thinking that such moment was good, is also now part of our environment, and it can lead to new thoughts. To new concepts.

The misunderstanding of the reasons behind finding positive properties of past events can become a positive property of current events. Nostalgia can be a drive for the exploration of new ideas. Of new thoughts that will then lead to new thoughts themselves. The ‘why’ will be explained by our new sensibilities, even if the ‘why’ then isn’t the ‘why’ now.

Our thoughts evolve, and our misremembering teaches us what we now consider to be a positive memory.

Nostalgia can be… no…

[Inspired by Rain Games’ Teslagrad]

Imagine yourself a witness.

Imagine yourself an incidental hero to a tale that transcends your existence, a tale driven by power, corruption and betrayal.

A world where the ambivalence of morality is ever present through the veins of a magical concept of opposites: the magic of magnetism.

And as the literal polar opposites of this natural phenomenon are predetermined through their strength to attract themselves into an everlasting conflict, so are the unseemly extremes of power and knowledge. But when strength is the determinant factor, there is little that can be done to stop a relentless force, a pull fueled by power.

As history tells us, there is little wisdom that can withstand the mighty power of ignorance and hatred. For this tale follows a similar fate, and ends on uncertainty.

But this is not your story.

This is a story long ago told, by a world that once lived it in full. You are nothing but a remnant of the lives that remain, a shimmering glint of hope for a family to thrive and set in a home built on unwelcome ground.

You are only a little boy.

And childhood is a moment of self-reflection only in hindsight, as our acts don’t follow a pattern drawn by our thirst, but by our context. The taking of ancient and once forgotten power may seem to pertain to a soul with a goal set in his mind.

For a second witness, with a fuller life, would easily see our actions as a constant rise in power, through the way our path seems to present it to us; or even a search of discovery, a journey of the mind expanding itself with each new finding. And they would be right.

But that is how innocence fades.

The truth is that power through wisdom is none too far from pure power, and wisdom through power follows the same train of thought.

And through the sacrifice of our sense of wonder, and how the mighty hands of realization lead us to our conclusion, we are to become that which we once saw from afar, sadly, because of our context.

We are thrown into a war that does not belong to us, that we didn’t decide to fuel, and we are pulled to it as much as we reject it, because the more strength we apply to do so, the more it brings us in.

The saddest part of such a fate, is how easily our paths are so hard to distinguish, much like the poles of a faded magnet, we can’t tell one side from the other unless another one will forcefully make us realize.

As such, it is only fitting, that our rejection of power is determined by how little we know, albeit enough.

[Inspired by personal struggles with ethics]

The being was.

The being is.

The being was because of reality.

The being is because of 'reality'.

A scene engulfed by the eternal flames of time, with a being trying to suppress its internal struggle of being itself.

It seemed clear.

It seemed important.

It may be.

It may not.

But for now, it was.

It, was but a fleeting thought that had stuck. Stuck hard to one's being.

One's being, and one's act. Befalling judgment on one, but not the other.

For an act flees in time, but stays in impact; while a being stays in time, but in impact, it hardly exists.

A being was.

This one was.

But it was not what was seen.

Seen instead was an incorporeal thought brought into alleged existence by hatred.

Hatred had tainted the sight of those that were once able to see, or at least this one's act is to say as such.

Hatred not for the gray acts.

Nor for the white.

Nor for the black.

For no act at all except all of them at once. Past, present and future.

In a sea of uncertainty, a waterfall of truth is diluted into nothingness.

But nothing could be done.

The truth was no more, not even to this one.

And so this one feels words move through him in vague meaning.

Tells in short, while the feeling lasts.

This one would soon blissfully hate.

As knowledge would run its course past the being's permanence.

In a sea of uncertainty...

The being was.

[Inspired by Dontnod Entertainment’s ‘Life is Strange’]

The time flows freely, as a butterfly soars, and although the cage is steely, neither of them should be forced.

Our age turns on us, every number feels so far, and even with all of this loss, we're never younger than we are.

Always used to think "If I could control time, I would change every little thing, to get what I believe is mine."

But time never lets, it controls itself whole, when a door opens in our face, in its place it leaves a hole.

And the hole holds its stare, demanding to be filled, and when time is set so still, there is nothing that seems fair.

All the time in the world won't matter once it's gone, and the place we call a home, won't be home to be no more.

For a deer in the headlights, it will always break the glass, lest the car runs out of gas, or simply stops to see the sights.

It seems so out of range, the thing that you hold dear, so you ask yourself and hear, "Isn't this life, oh so strange?"

And when life answers you clear, yelling “Yes!”, all so sincere, you just take it, have no fear, but don't dare to interfere.

See the sky and hope it's bright, know the dark will come tonight, if this darkness comes to smite, there'll be nothing left to write.

So believe me when I say, the chaos is here to stay, yes, even when you're away, you just have to find a way.

Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015): “Manners Maketh Man” - Freakality’s Short Movie Reviews

District B13 (2004): “District 13 is Out of Control” - Freakality’s Short Movie Reviews

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What’s your question?

An old tale. In more ways than one.

Wake up. Look beneath your feet. Look closer. An ant. Open your eyes.

Hell is said to smell like sulfur, but based on experience, it smells like shit.

Salagadoola mechicka boola...

“District 13 is out of control.”

Cinema.