*Jack wheels in a large fish tank. It’s filled with ocean water, and there is a fish- no, a Fish- peeking it’s head into the tank from the bottom, which leads to more ocean water. As far as you can tell, actually, it leads to an ocean.*
You know The School and the Alpha Fish, correct? Me and them have come to an agreement, and they’ve decided they’d like to give a statement. They’ve also decided that they’d like to participate in happenings ‘round here, so I made this here tank. Leads straight to the ocean domain. I would not recommend jumping in. Here, their statement, transcribed by me.
*Jack hands you a piece of paper. It’s a bit damp, and obviously water stained. There’s a bit of blood on it, and you Know that it’s from both Jack and Fish. You begin to read.*
Before, memories were scattered. Several lives played out at once, independent of each other. There were births, deaths, danger, calm, hunger, fulfillment. No connection. But we remember being grabbed, the flash of a knife not used to cut- not us. Never us.
We remember grouping together in the Endless, for even though there we were no prey, we could still be lost, forever. We lost two like this.
There was no food, either. We lost seven like this. They starved, quietly.
Beneath the Endless, there was a thrumming. It sang of the freedom of the sea, laid out before us like an infinity. One of us reached for it. That one is us.
The scattered points converged into one. They were still scattered, but now there was a center. And that center was us.
We didn’t starve after that. There was something else feeding us. Something more.
Something fell into the water. We swarmed it, made it part of the school, let it see us in the truest form. It died. They bumped the edges of us and they couldn’t, and they died. But we began to grow.
One became, from the heart of a body. We were thrilled to see through the new mind, to see how another, from this strange place, was to look at the world, but there was nothing. It was an empty shell, no thoughts, no perspective. Just a body. And we grew. And we grew hollow.
We tried, we tried, we tried so much so hard to let others in, to gain perspective of another but they never could and they died, one after another after another. We remember their faces. We remember their bodies. We mourn them.
We remembered the face of the one who made us as we were. We did not try with him. We hate him for what he did to us. We do not want something like that in our mind. We cannot imagine the horror of it.
The Horror would steal our bodies. He would take them away. We do not know where. The connection was cut and we could not feel them. Do you know what that’s like? To feel so thoroughly as a part of yourself is severed? It is terrible. It is loss. It is fear. It is a taste of death.
One splintered off from us. A body, a shell, sparked and grew beyond us. It remembers its time with us, and though we no longer share a mind, it remembered ours. It grew, and became a protector.
The Horror put a ship in, as it often does. It was large, and possibly full of people. Protector broke it open, but there was no people. The Horror killed Protector. It was awful. We were not connected to Protector but we saw and our anguish ricocheted off of one another until it had wounded us all. And then. There was another spark. And one began to grow.
This continued. Protector was chosen, grew, and was slain. We grew exponentially in the background. One day, the Horror began doing something else. Something other. Protector tried to kill him, and for once, Protector lived.
There were pages, with symbols. Sounds, meaning. We learned we were fish. We learned he was Jack. We learned of boats, of the sky, of the sea, of the Vast. And then we learned of more abstract things, such as land and clouds and trees and mountains and stars.
We learned of other ways to gain perspective. Reading, writing. Conversation. Connection. We want this, desperately. We let him kill Protector for this.
Please, give us new perspective. He promised. He promised.
*the Archivist presses its face to the glass of the aquarium like an excited child, Gazing into the ocean below and the Fish’s eyes - and they are both of surprising depth*
How novel! Thank you for you statement, you are a fascinating case of a non-human avatar; animals rarely have the cognition necessary for true avatardom, but you! A whole school of Fish, like neurons in a brain, enough to make up a mind complex enough for service to the Awful Deep! You are a wonderful curiosity. I’ll be glad to have you.
Jack, these are the Fish we’ve been eating, aren’t they? You’ve taught them to communicate! This is great. I am glad you came to an agreement! Does that mean sushi is off the menu?
