#cor.exe

He wasn’t doing too well. He hadn’t been for a long time now, but he did his best not to let it show. It was significantly harder to laugh things off now, but he managed. He always had. It was just how he functioned.

The deterioration of his mental health was nothing new, but the changes to his appearance were. They weren’t huge, but Cy knew his own body. He knew when something was different. He was still just as gaunt as ever, but there was a grey to his complexion that reminded him of a corpse.

He stared at himself in his bathroom mirror, pulling his lips back to examine his gums. They bled whenever he brushed his teeth now, and his bones just kind of had a perpetual ache that made it hard to sit comfortably. It was a result of the injections, he was sure. He would have gone to a doctor, but there would be little to be done. As it was, he just popped painkillers like candy and kept working.

The little changes were easy to ignore, most of the time.

But days like today, when he bathed and groomed himself, he was forced to confront them. When he stripped his nail polish off his nails were darker than they used to be. When he brushed his hair, it seemed to just fall out in his brush.  So many tiny things, that all added up to something that should have been a giant red flag to stop.

It wasn’t.

Cy took the time to repaint his nails and get dressed, drying his hair and combing it through. He did it gently, and was rewarded for his efforts when only a few strands came loose. It was an improvement, he supposed.

It didn’t matter. After spending another few minutes inspecting himself, Cy slipped out to his bedroom to get dressed. He wasn’t going out anywhere, but general cleanliness had always been important to Cy. His house may have been cluttered and messy, but it wasn’t dirty. If that ever changed, then it was a sign that something was seriously wrong.

He pulled on his beanie and then retreated back into his office, where he had a large, flat TV screen laying face-up in the middle of the room, plugged into a little black box that looked like it was covered in fresh, wet ink. He sat cross-legged in front of it, glancing around to see if Zorc was lurking nearby.

No? Whatever. He didn’t need him there to watch or supervise. He did most of this without the God’s input – all he ever got from him were nasty little comments anyway.

Bony fingers took off his USB necklace and laid it down on the floor neatly, feeling the absence of it like the loss of a limb. It was always cold against his chest – it felt weird for it to be gone.

He pushed himself up and went over to his main computer, tapping a few things in. Behind him the little box whirred to life, and the TV screen lit up with static that slowly turned pitch black – pulsing like it was alive.

Good. This part was old news to him now. It worked. It worked, and he had made so many other things since this.

Still, it was needed.

He picked up another little black box – this one sturdier, but made of the same living material, and moved over to the screen. He knelt down in front of it and braced one hand against the edge, sucking in a nervous breath. It was fine. It was fine. It was fine.

Just a one-sided portal. The other side… Well. Was there oxygen there? What was the pressure like?

He looked around. Still no Zorc.

Fine.

He held his breath and leaned into the pulsing screen, taking the little box with him. Calling it cold would have been an understatement – it was like he’d just submerged himself in liquid nitrogen. His entire upper body vanished into the screen, down to above his waist, with one arm still out and gripping the edge of it like a lifeline.

He couldn’t see, but he could feel. He was surrounded by... He didn’t know. Squirming, frigid nothing. It coiled around him and tried to tug him deeper, but it wasn’t that strong a tug. 

It wasn’t the most disturbing thing, either. No - that would have been the silence. Unending, hollow, harrowing. He swallowed, and couldn’t even hear that. Like that sense had been cut entirely. Coupled with being unable to see, he wanted to hurry up and be done.

He took the box in his hand and stretched as far as his body would allow, feeling the - the - whatever - curling around it like they wanted to tug it away.

Perfect. 

He leaned in further, and then let it go - let it get swept out of his hands and tugged away into the nothing. 

When he yanked himself out of the screen, he was filthy all over again. Covered in a squirming, black rot that was eating his fucking clothes. 

Whatever.