Cadet Barnacles

Murrough Murphy - @fieldfrl

Bernhard - Snorfus

Miki - @kacooch

Ilaitsoq - Anokhi

Prow - @hydrias

Ducky - HarrowedWolf

Apollyon - Phroge

Hook - Nikaleles

White Whale - A_Dumpster_Fire

you're four years old. someone close to you has just laid their hands on you for the first time. this will be the first of many occurrences. you won't know about it until many years later.

you're eight years old. when teachers call your name in class, you won't reply. not because you don't hear it, but because it doesn't feel like you. you're not sure if it's ever been your name. maybe you're transgender. you just read about that on the internet. you will spend years going back and forth on labels that will never fit right, and you will spend years forgetting what labels you've tried.

you are nine years old. your grades are already failing. you can't pay attention in class. you don't know what happens when you go home. you wake up the next day sore and covered in bruises and something else that you can't recall right now. you're not sure what you mean by right now, there's just right now, and right now you go to school. you don't remember going to school. you're back at home. did you ever leave? you're twenty two years old.

you are ten years old. fictionkinning is all the rage on the internet. it's given you something to attach to. that's nice. you know who you are for once.

you are thirteen years old. you've always been thirteen years old. you don't know anything that happened before being thirteen.

you are thirteen years old. you haven't stopped having imaginary friends. you think you're schizophrenic. you will self diagnose yourself as such for years, because you want a label to tie yourself down with. you want to know yourself, because you're not sure you ever have. when do you learn how to do that, anyways? everyone around you seems like they know. you are seven years old.

you are sixteen years old. have you ever not been sixteen? you must've spawned in like this.

you are seventeen years old. you've just learned about systems online. you don't get it.

you are twenty years old. you've just crashed your- no, you didn't. how'd your car get totaled? when did you have a car? you're thirteen years old. you can't even drive. were you driving? there's other people here. you've known they were there. but since when? someone tells you that you've known for two years. what? it's been longer than that. you've known since you were

you're four years old. something happened to you this year, but really, it's been sixteen years.

there never was a four year old. you have always been twenty two. when did you turn twenty two?

you're in a community for people like you. you've been handed a diagnosis, but it's been a while. you don't remember when you got it. someone else does. he's your friend, but he's you. that's nice to have.

you meet someone. they say they experienced something similar to you. that's nice. you spend days, weeks, months talking and getting closer. you bond over your systemhood, you tell them everything, they tell you everything. they tell you that they became a system later in life. you ask them how that works. they tell you they "willed it." you ask if something really did happen to them after all.

they say no. they just didn't want to be shunned from "their community."

the person you had known for months has lied to you this entire time.

the person you had known for months has claimed solidarity with you, but they never once experienced it.

the person you had known for months thinks that your dissociation is a fun concept. they think it's fascinating that the human mind can do that. they think it's wonderful to have friends and to never be alone. all you've wanted is to remember properly and to be alone for once. when did you want that?

when did you meet this person? was there ever a person?

you're sixteen years old. you never had that friend. someone else here had that friend, but they weren't your friend.

you try and remember for once, but someone tells you that you've done this before. you've tried to remember, and you've remembered everything all at once, and then you've forgotten.

you will do this daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and you will forget it every time.

but your internal friend's friend will never do that. they will continue to use a label that has ruined your life, and they will use it for fun. they will find all of this nonsense. they will think you are "exclusionary." they will think that you are a terrible person. they will think you are the problem.

they will tell you to take your own life. you wish you had. someone tells you that you've tried before. all you can say is, "oh." you wonder if it worked. you wonder if this is hell.

they will have fun. you will continue to suffer.

you are four sixteen twelve thirteen twenty-two twenty years old. something happened to you, somewhere along the way. you don't remember. someone else.

did you ever figure out a name, by the way?