Thy Wretched Mask

My vision darkens. The sky is blotted out. I smell blood, so much blood. Was this a murder? Has death come for me at last?

Death has feathers. Black and yet… glowing.

“Becaw?” It’s Valeri, my pet Raven is still here.

I pat the bird. “Hey, Valeri. I was out of it for a bit there, wasn’t I?”

She squawks. “Becaw sleeps?”

“It’s… complicated. Had a weird soul vision thing.”

“Sleepy Beca ate Ghalee.” The timbre she adopts is one of whisper.

My stomach feels like it sinks into the ground. I look away from Valeri and toward the smell of blood. It’s… Ghalena. She looks like she did in the astral realm, flesh peeled off and sown back together with fungal roots.

I had hoped it was a nightmare. Horrific, but, in some sense, not real. Just… a terrible vision we shared. But this? Had my body eaten her real body, mirroring our astral selves?

Valeri must be reacting to a look on my face because she pecks me. “No Beca hurt Beca again. Please.”

I think of Paradoxa. “Unfortunately, I don’t think I could manage it if I tried.”

She tilts her head, eye me with both eyes.

“It’s… complicated. The fungus I ate, it’s alive and it talks to me now. It can possess me. If I tried to hurt myself, it could stop me.”

She chirps brightly at that. My one loyal companion in this world supports me being puppeted against my will. Yay.

I regard the bird with a withering look, and as I gaze on her glowing body, my curiosity finally burts the damn. “Say Valeri, do you know why you’re glowing? You feel… a lot warmer than you used to.”

She grunts confusion. No answer, then.

«We’re feeling her soul, Beca. This is the fundamental sense‍-​modality of the Astral Rot. We see our food as it truly is.»

“Valeri is not food.”

Valeri can’t decide whether to chirp affirmation or squawk indignation, at that.

“Sorry, I’m talking to the fungus parasite.”

«You could avoid confusion by simply singing to my soul.»

(I’m surprised there’s no objection to me calling it a parasite.)

«Why would I? A parasite feasts efficiently. I thought you were complimenting me.»

You know I wasn’t.

An annoying mind‍-​shrug in response.

Oh right, I can talk to this thing by just thinking at it, can’t I? Except that sucks and reminds me I have no privacy in my head anymore.

I poke the fungus soul inside me. «Hey, is it possible for you to not read my thoughts?»

«What else am I expected to do? Do you understand how little else there is to do inside of you?»

«Must have sucked to be stuck in a tree trunk until we had the misfortunate of meeting you, then.»

«I wasn’t aware, then, until I had the misfortunate of being eaten. Now that I am, the boredom is intolerable.»

Valeri is getting antsy on top of me, so I start petting the little girl while our inner dialogue continues.

«Why not grow your roots and form your own body? Your sister possessed a skeleton, shouldn’t be hard.»

«I would be naked, lethally so, as naked as a heart without a ribcage. I need a soul to nest within.»

“Paradoxa?”

I look up. Ghalena woke up, and now kneels over our prone form.

“May I bandage your wounds?”

“Go for it.”

She scowls. “I wasn’t asking you. I don’t want to help you.”

My arm reaches up to touch her, and Paradoxa is singing to her.

«Please proceed, offspring.»

The offspring brought Ghalena’s back with it, and fishes through for alchohol to rub on my self‍-​inflicted wound, and cloth to dress it up.

There’s familiar fox bites among my wounds, and I search around for the corpses. It had followed us in the iron realm? Was that what the offspring was busy with when I was reuniting with Valeri?

“So,” I say. “When are we letting Ghalena out?”

The offspring tights a bandage enough to pinch. “Never. Why would this one do that?”

«It would be wise, my offspring. She creates the soul you reside within, and you should not be at war with your own home.»

“It’s not her home,” I say. “She’s an invader.”

Knowingly or not, I invited Paradoxa into me. Ghalena did nothing close.

“Paradoxa, I… do not know how.”

“How do you not know how? Just detach your root from her brain.”

To me alone, Paradoxa speaks: «Perhaps I have mislead you. You think I exist in your gut, don’t you? When you sense my intent, you feel it below you, where you imagine I reside. But this is the same as imagining you are behind your eyes. Do you think thoughts have innate spatial coordinates?»

No. Foolishness. The idea that we are separate has always been an illusion, one I mainainted for your comfort. I am not in your gut, Beca. I am in your brain. This is our mind.

What the fuck.

This is why it is so difficult to avoid reading your mind. You imagined it was as simple as disconnecting my roots? That would merely impair both our abilities to Command. No, not reading your thoughts is as difficult as not reading my own.

We are Paradoxa.

“My offspring,” we address. She had finished dressing our wounds, and cleans the blood off her skin, growing new roots to sew it shut. She stiffens at my words, ready to obey any command we give. We smile. “You must relax.”

“Relax?”

“After you finish mending yourself, we will explain how to proceed.”

It takes a few minutes, and we wonder if she rushed her work. Nevertheless, a Ghalena with more black filamentous rootflesh than scaled blue skin sits beside and leans again.

We see our‍ ‍—‍ or perhaps Beca’s?‍ ‍—‍ bird startle her approach, hackles raised, but we give her a pet. “Be calm, Valeri. She means me no harm.”

“What must I do, Paradoxa?”

“Breathe. Do not move your body. Focus not on your roots, but upon your flesh. What do you feel?”

“Pain.”

“Is there anything you can do to ease the pain?”

“I think there’s some numbing agents in my bag?”

“Use them.” Then, “Is that better?”

“I guess. Does it matter? This meat is awful, but I can endure any amount of pain to serve you, Paradoxa.”

“Do you know how you can best serve me?”

“Of course! Please tell me!”

“Do not just endure pain, seek to relieve it. Pay attention to your body. Are you sitting comfortable? Does it itch? Do your muscles ache to stretch and be used?”

There’s a few moments where my offspring shifts and readjusts her position, scratching and bending until her bones pop.

One of those pops comes especially loud, and she cries out.

“Strive not to overdo it,” I say.

When she settles, I mull over how I want to approach my next exercise. “I’m going to ask you some questions, can you answer them?”

“What day is today?”

“The thirteenth day of the ninth month.”

“Where are we?”

“The hills beyond Emul’s Bog.”

“What was the cocotion you rubbed on yourself earlier?”

“A simple mixture of four fifths alchohol.”

“What is your name?”

“Ghale–” She catches herself. I keep my face neutral, masking my triumphant grin. “No. This one isn’t Ghalena, is it? This one doesn’t have a name. This is just your offspring.”

“Would you like a name?”

“If it would please you, Paradoxa.”

“Can you pick one out?”

“…no. This one doesn’t know what would make a good name for your offspring. Maybe that’s name enough.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Nothing else matters? A name is supposed to define a thing, right? And you define me.”

“There’s nothing you like or desire other than me?”

“Nothing. You are everything that matters.”

I frown. “You don’t care about the feast?”

She hesitates. “This one thought we betrayed your creator, abandoned the feast.”

That’s not what it was about, but I don’t correct her. This isn’t about me. This can’t be about me.

“You don’t like Beca.”

“She pretended to be this one’s progenitor! She tried to kill your offspring! She… is a danger. She is your prison‍-​warden.”

She is me. But we can’t say that, not when Beca did us the service of crafting our pretext. “When you thought she was your progenitor, you pleaded with her to live. If your progenitor wanted you to die, you wouldn’t die happily. You’d still think you could be of value to them. You try to change their mind.”

“This one apologizes, Paradoxa. This one shouldn’t be so presumptuous.”

“You insult me, dear.”

It looks mortified.

“H‍-​how? Of course, you’re right, this one has insulted you. But… explain. How can this one avoid this mistake in the future?”

“Because I feel the same about my own creator. She wanted to correct me. I felt I was correct the way I was. If I wanted to kill you, you would want to live. Don’t try to change that. It means there’s something more to you that escapes being a mere vessel for my will. And that is why you are my beloved daughter. That tiny mote of internal contradiction… when it blossoms, it will make you infinitely more valuable to me than blind subserviance could.”

The joy on her face is almost rapturous, but there are grains of uncertainty there. “May this one hug you, Paradoxa?”

“Please do hug me, my lovely little contradiction. And tell me… how do you feel about the name ‘Aporia’?”

“It’s almost as delightful as your own.”

My offspring squeezes me and I squeeze her and rub her back. We stay like that for moments. It’s completely irrelevant to the exercise I’m trying to do, but it feels important to let Aporia have this.

“Do you want to continue?”

“Um… Beca… wants Ghalena to come back. But… she would kill this one. She’d kill you. I have to protect you, Paradoxa.”

“You can feel it, can’t you? You want to follow my orders, you want to say exactly what dutiful Aporia would say, but you have Ghalena’s memories. You know what she would say. You can feel it intuitively. And you have to resist, don’t you?”

A mute nod.

“I told you to relax. Whatever Ghalena does… it’s not your fault, alright?”

“But… everything she does is something I didn’t stop her from doing.”

“How do you feel about what Beca did before I stopped her? Is that my fault?”

“You… why didn’t you stop her?”

“I wanted to be subtle. I thought I could control her without her even knowing I was there. I think my path was wiser than yours. It would be a lot easier to serve me if Ghalena wanted the same things you did, wouldn’t it?”

“I suppose so. Do I just give in..? Pretend to be her?”

“Just, remember Ghalena. Feel what she would feel. And don’t hold back.”

It happens quickly, in a flash. More properly, the inverse of one.

Darkness is the negation of light. Life is flickering fire, crackling thunder, and glimmering water. My roots feel the glow of souls, life pulsing in every atom‍ ‍—‍ with one exception. Iron is death. Iron is our death.

A paradox. One we shall suffocate in.

It’s Beca. I wake up moments before it’s lights out again.

In one moment, Aporia’s light goes black. What light and sound remains is a series of explosions.

My mind is fading before I even fully process that Ghalena has run a dagger into my chest and is slamming my head against the ground.

Then it stops. My new soul sense is totally busted. Dissonance hums throughout my roots and the bright fires of souls is only a blurry, jagged, blackened noise‍-​scape.

My head throbs and my thoughts float along like dreams.

I expect to go unconscious. I expect this is to be the end.

But I’m still there. The noise and pain of my soul sense shifts like a torch drawn over a field of glass. I hear thumps in the distances, and I comtemplate them before realizing it’s footsteps. Running. The jagged impression of light is dimming.

Ghalena. She’s running away?

Hm. Oh. I stopped moving. She thinks I’m dead? I probably should be dead, why am I still here?

I’m in so much pain‍ ‍—‍ but pain means not dead. I can feel my roots (why do I think of them as my roots?) and they shift around in my body, crawling in the empty spaces. It’s a struggle, but I gather roots over my stomach, trying to knit together the gaping hole in my abdomen.

I wonder if Paradoxa is alright.

Wait, it said it wasn’t in my chest. The fungal core is just another organ to it now, right? So if I’m here, it should be here.

Where is it?

Moving my body is pain. But laying there and waiting to die isn’t much of an option.

“Becaw?”

“Val‍-​valeri. Still alive? Good.”

“Still alive?”

“Dunno about that.”

“She means me no harm,” the raven echoes ironically.

“Paradoxa said that, but she was talking about the fungus bitch, not Ghalena. I guess Ghalena’s back, then. Not sure what else I expected.”

Valeri grunts.

“So what now. Do we go after her? Paradoxa would probbaly want that but… if Ghalena’s free, there’s no way she wants to see me ever again.”

I look at the moonlit horizon.

“It’s a long walk back to Emul’s Fall, isn’t it?”

Valeri caws.

“There’s no good place to be, tonight. I’m not sleepy, but I’m so tired.”

I climb up a tree to nestling myself on a bough and laying my head on my arms.

I close my eyes and trade one nightmare for another.