Redlight, Robert and Revenants

First thing's first - what's been happening lately? Absolutely nothing. We've been heading back south towards our old hometown just for somewhere to drive to, since direction helps this kind of thing, and there's been no indication whatsoever we're being followed. Which is terrible, terrible news, because it means whoever is following us knows me. That's literally all the news about us.

So Redlight.

The guy's a celebrity. Seriously. Half of my old colleagues had crushes on him, and that includes a good deal of ostensibly straight males. He's like the Jesus of the Touched community, with the added benefit of still being alive. The stories I've heard about him are obviously false, because, well, I'm almost certain he's never been to Australia and half of them are told by people who insist they've heard it from the man himself. I wouldn't worry about his 'mystical origins' if I were you, even if he is a Revenant. Still, I've heard told he's the only living descendant of Cain, the sinful son of Adam. There are stories we used to tell that say he's the first man to have ever seen Him or the first person to build a temple to a quiet forest spirit that would rather have been left alone but for some quiet worship from a few faithful followers, who was rewarded for his devotion with eternal life in service of a changing God.

It's all bullshit, of course. He may not know himself, but he's clearly Jay. It's too perfect not to be true. That's the way this works, you see - we end up telling stories, because stories feed Him while He sleeps, when our minds can't. First, He corrupts them, turns them into something more palatable - the facts change over time and we forget that this didn't happen and that did. Eventually what once was, is no longer.

So whoever Redlight was when he made that first post on Robert's blog doesn't really matter. Because it fits best if he's Jay. One day soon, when Redlight's story comes to an end along with Robert's, there'll be some small hint. We'll argue about it, quibble on this and that point and get caught up with the tiny inconsistencies that always occur when a person tells stories about themselves. But eventually, years after blogging about all of this has become trite and overdone, or after somebody discovers that you get left alone a whole lot more often if you stop telling people about all of this, then as long as He endures (which He will), someday somebody will stumble upon the circuit and discover it has changed since anyone last looked at it.

He'll have won every engagement, for one thing. As long as He outlives the civilization He haunts, that's what happens. The cold hard scientific facts of the past fade into obscurity until all that's left are stories in which the monster wins - because that's what He did so why shouldn't the histories reflect that at every turn? And if he makes the cut and remains something He remembers, then there'll be Redlight, perhaps a central figure, perhaps an unimportant footnote. But I'd bet my life he'll be Jay, because that would make the best story.

Anyway Robert and Revenants and I'll leave you all to tear my theory apart with the kind of scrutiny only your fellow Heretic is capable of. If I'm ever stuck in a repeating loop of imprisonment and insanity like that and you're given the chance to put me out of my misery, then put me out of my misery. For God's sake just let me die with some dignity. I don't care if it's Redlight or Him Himself that's offering whatever 'deal' will end up killing me, I'd really rather prefer to die.

Oh, and Robert, If you ever come across our little blog here, I'd stay out of the Forest Paths from now on, if I were you. It's kind of like taking a shortcut through a Police Station to escape from the cops. Eventually somebody catches on and locks the back door.

That's about it.

Oh, and before I forget, since I've said the word now and that kind of thing always invites speculation, I've never met a Revenant in my life. I'm still struggling to accept that they're real. When He's crawling around in your head shouting twisted memories at you constantly and trying to explode your brain by sharing His twisted versions of an emotion, you do kind of get an impression on how He works. And besides from being so terrifying your brain erases any memory of it as soon as it can, it also gives me the feeling Revenants are just not his style. Which means there's a reason a bunch of super-powered freaks are running around and it's not because He needs them. Which unsettles me.

That doesn't mean I'm not carrying around a can of mace. Super-senses aren't really the best idea for your elite warriors, seeing as it kind of makes anything capable of incapacitating a normal person because of sensory overload into a viable murder weapon. I've been trying to convince Ben to fiddle around with the car alarm to install a switch for it, since he knows a bit about electronics and that thing fricken hurts to listen to with normal ears and I'm not a huge fan of my chances of successfully employing the mace if it come to it, but he's not such a fan of messing with the car, which I guess makes sense.

And, uh, that's about it. And I mean it this time.