McDonald's Coffee is the Nectar of the Gods

We're on the road again. I think we got out just in time. Something terrible was set to happen, of that I'm sure. It's closer, now. He's closer. Whoever He's got following us - any money it's James, if he still lives - is closer now.

It's kind of hard to explain how my old compatriots do the following thing, because most of it is going to sleep in one place and waking up in another having bought some train ticket or convinced some trucker to give them a lift, but regardless of how it works hanging around brings them closer just like it does Him. One day whoever it is will wake up with a train ticket or an address that'll lead them right to us, and that's when it gets interesting. I've got a lot of contingencies, and to be frank, I really can't wait to try some of them out.

Not that any of them are too violent, mind. I cringe every time I see the words "fucked up another Proxy" thrown out as an afterthought. It never accomplishes anything, killing innocent people who've lost their free will. All it does is stain your soul and make you that little bit more used to killing. Well, that and deny some family somewhere any chance of ever getting their son, or their husband or their daughter back.

Do you want to know what the Touched do when they're not wearing masks? I'll answer the question for you. You don't. But I'll tell you anyway, and we can see if you'll all just learn to deal with what you've done and what you're doing.

Mostly they stare at walls, dead inside - nothing but an empty shell being driven by a poor impression of a human. Sometimes, they convulse in pain or with the intensity of 'His rapture', or speak in tongues about creatures long dead, thoughts long forgotten and the corpses of Gods. But occasionally, when He's busy elsewhere, when He hasn't bothered with the theopany in a while, they sit in the corner and cry. Or write letters to family that they'll never send, because what the hell do you say to people from a life you were torn from by a faceless God? Once in a while, some might even beg me to kill them, if they're feeling particularly hopeless.

These are people you're killing. Violent, dangerous, insane, cunning, demented people, but people nonetheless. Sometimes, they're not even Hallowed - and I have to use that word because Touched doesn't mean the same thing. We're all Touched, the Heretics and Hallowed and Taken alike, and sometime when you're "stomping the shit out of some proxy trash lol" you're just killing somebody indistinguishable from yourself a few months from now. What do you think Damien was like in his last few days? How do you think Maudin's going to end up if a prank ever goes too far? What separates them from us? The world isn't black and white, people. It's grey, endless grey, like a really shitty video game.

This post isn't for all of you, obviously. There are people out there who clearly understand the moral conundrum involved with murdering the shell of a person that's been corrupted by Him. But the more often you delude yourself into thinking you haven't been killing people, and every time you dehumanize the corpse you've just created, you do just that. Dehumanize them. This whole game - this whole fight - is one fought in the head-space of countless unlucky victims. And when a good part of that head-space just accepts the fact anyone He Takes is no longer human, it makes it very difficult for what's left of them to cling to humanity.

I get it. Killing people is hard, and it's easier when you convince yourself they're not people. And to an extent they're not, especially when they're trying to claw your brains out for besmirching His name and daring to resist His light. But somewhere inside that mind, buried deep within that grey matter and hanging from a Tree that doesn't really exist is a person, and they might not feel the pain as their body is destroyed, but they'll learn soon enough that it has been when they realise His Tree is the sum of their existence from now on.

And maybe, just maybe if you'd shot them in the knee, or been content to leave them unconscious on the floor instead of stamping their head in, they might've had another day weeks from then to enjoy a chocolate bar or watch a slightly more sane friend play Fable, or just have a shower and feel the water one more time. Or sit in a corner and cry about how much they want their mother. Like the person they are.

I went to the Fireworks tonight because I had nothing better to do

He was there. Just standing there watching from way off in the distance under a lamp post, all alone. It wasn't too crowded where I was because I'd chosen a further away and higher up place to watch from than right in the middle of the action, but there was still plenty of people, and He was just standing there in the pool of light, all alone. He looked as human as I'd ever seen Him, though His arms were still far too long and just tapered off to a little curled point and He was almost too tall to fit under the light, but that wasn't even the worst part.

I could hear Him singing. That's not even the right word, but it's the closest you could get and it's what I'm going with. It wasn't exactly the kind of thing you hear - I more felt it, but it was a kind of weird hum or a whine that makes your teeth hurt, only they just tingled instead and it wasn't actually doing anything to my teeth, if that makes sense.

Reading it back I don't know if that captures it properly, but it's the best I can do. There was a tune, too, kind of off-beat and low, though I know I'll never remember it properly.

The worst part, though, was that I wasn't scared. It felt like coming home listening to that song, like there was a pull in my chest dragging me towards Him, or down, or somewhere not quite on this plane of existence that I can only describe as one second ago and a little to the left, even if that makes absolutely no sense.

It's started - of that I'm sure. Today's the day I get offered a promotion, and regardless of my say in it, I doubt it will be long before I accept it. So, there are some obvious things I'm going to have to do.

James once said "Safety can Only be fOund in eterNal service.", and I think I know what he meant, listening to that song - I think he was referring to tonight and the events of the past few days, after which I'm sure there'll be little time for what's left of my sanity. I'm going to convince James to let me steal a car tomorrow, so we can complete our trip a little earlier and let us get back home quicker so I don't lose it somewhere unfamiliar.

Worst. 24. Hours. Ever.

I am going to kill James one day. He got me up at seven o'clock yesterday morning. Seven. I went to bed at three and he gets me up at seven so we can go chase after some two-bit Heretic who had gotten more than enough sleep for the night and didn't feel like his insides were desperately trying to become his outsides.

Needless to say, we didn't catch him right away because I started to get dizzy spells after about twenty seconds of running and then threw up, which surprisingly made me feel a whole lot better and really, really hungry. I've never been the greatest runner anyway, and the two empty bottles of vodka back at what passes for home base at the moment certainly weren't helping matters. Sidekick, of course, was charging through his hangover like a boss (the guy also drank me under the table last night, which is just so incredibly unfair) and saw fit to ignore both James and I when we told him to stop. I did so through/in between vomiting, so I guess it's possible he misheard me, but James was perfectly alright when he was saying it, if a little pissed off.

So once I was able to move and James had finished screaming at me about how much he'd like to kill me and how much trouble I was, being unfit for His touch and thus incapable of acting as I should, we set out to find Sidekick. James got that 'I know which way to go how scary am I?' look, and marched off to the train station, from where we caught a train. Luckily, there was time enough between trains to go get some food and some breath mints, because man was I hungry.

And, um, next comes the part you won't enjoy, because we found Sidekick, and Sidekick had obviously found the runner, because he had the look that Touched get when they've been around Him quite recently, and the runner was nowhere to be found.

But that of course is not the worst part, because what started all of this was my brother getting back from Europe. I may or may not have had a plan to stab Sidekick in the neck and James in the stomach all within perhaps five seconds of time while Sidekick was asleep so that I could go pick him up and get the hell out of dodge, but of course there's a faceless monstrosity that apparently has access to all of my thoughts, because He was there before I could even fold out my knife, and He was angry.

He knew. I haven't told anybody - I didn't even tell you guys I was planning on killing them and running as soon as my brother got back - and He knew.

So now I don't know If James was just being the usual lunatic when he kept dropping those hints, and I feel like there's something skittering around in the back of my head watching everything I do and I can't get the image of Him and all those branches eating the sky out of my head and I feel like I need to throw up again.

But I'm okay, I guess. For now. My brother's back home, at least, so I guess there'll probably be more emails from here on in and I guess if by some miracle I'm able to avoid the boss stepping in whenever I try to quit then at least he's a little closer. So um, yeah, that's pretty much it.

I kinda wish I had it in me to write that all up so it was better and more entertaining to read. I swear there must be something wrong with me.

Ugh. Haven't slept in hours

Edit: That title would make a whole lot more sense as "Ugh. Haven't been able to get to sleep all night", which is what I meant to say but failed to because I was half asleep when I started writing this yesterday (incidentally, I'm having trouble sleeping tonight, too, in case the late hour didn't tip you off). Hopefully you all got the picture.

There's so totally wi-fi across the road from where we've broken into, but it keeps dropping in and out so I don't know how much I'll get done before James wakes up and pulls me away from my 'Heretical pursuits'. Travelling's really been messing with my head lately and I haven't heard from Ben in forever, so forgive me if this entire thing is massively disjointed and train-of-thought in style. Not that I'm panicking. The guy's doing a tour of Europe - I don't exactly expect an email everyday.

The last one I did get was worrying in the extreme, though, so maybe I'm not panicking and just worried. Apparently, while driving through Germany he got massively creeped out by the Black Forest and a whole bunch of foggy mountains and bare trees in Italy and Switzerland. They're the only bad parts of the trip he's mentioned so far, and I don't think anybody'll miss the obvious implication. For anybody living under a rock, I've heard tell that the Boss's head office is in Germany so if there's anywhere He could show up without prior warning or cause then it's definitely there. I'm not going to panic and do anything stupid because there's absolutely nothing I can do so far away and whilst being watched 24/7, but I want it on record that I'm not enjoying the situation I'm in at the moment. I guess I just have to wait, even if it's killing me.

On another note, I think Hosozukuri (you might know her as the (Minstrel), if you're into the 'Core Theory') is getting worse, which is a damn shame because I've always loved her music. Depression's a symptom just like the lost time and atypical behaviour (3341, in this case) and it's all piling up faster than I'd like. That and the fact some colleague of mine is hanging around doesn't bode well. Not that I've met the colleague - since Hosozukuri probably isn't even Australian. There's no way to tell if she's experiencing any other symptoms, though, because you never know what a person's leaving out of their blog. It's not looking good at any rate. Like I said, I love her work and it's a damn shame.

Um, that's all I wanted to write about, I think, apart from a headache that I hope to God is the result of far too little sleep for a week and not an upcoming 'performance review'. Oh yeah - on that note, the overwhelming urge to write that made me start the blog has gone. It disappeared a little after the Solstice, in fact. I'm not going to up and leave or anything so don't panic, I just didn't think to mention it until now because it's not all that important. I figure it's something you all deserve to know anyway, though. Full disclosure and all that.

Apart from that, I promise I'm writing up everything I've done while away from the Internet, I swear. It's just a whole lot of rather boring stuff interrupted occasionally by an interesting anecdote or two, so it's taking a bit to get through and cut down to something that's still interesting.

I figured out why we're on this trip

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned the phone network before, but suffice to say James invented a number substitution code and a phone-based network that allows His Servants in positions of authority and responsibility (be they Touched, Taken or simply Servants) to keep in contact and get the low-down on colleagues passing through their care, and this whole trip is basically one long enrolment/update program for all of Australia to make sure it's still working okay.

I guess before he met me and went off the edge his paranoia really paid off, because the whole thing is as close to foolproof as I could’ve imagined.

Basically, if somebody is trying to crack the code, stealing a phone book from one of us isn’t going to help you at all, since everybody uses their own phone number (and one or two supplementary numbers containing any numbers their own doesn’t have) as a key. They keep the real ones in their head and write the code ones in their phone book, along with everybody else’s numbers which are also in code. Because everybody can remember two or three phone numbers without having to write them down, this all means there is no written key to steal, which leaves you with something in the order of 3628800 possible combinations you’d need to try to crack one number that can’t even hold all of the code in the best case scenario. Better yet, even if somebody gets sloppy and does write down the key numbers to allow a faster conversion, you still don’t know which key numbers correspond to which code numbers.

We also don’t substitute for the area codes in the landlines or the 04 in the mobile numbers, because that’d just give away some of the substitutions to anybody with half a brain. Oh, and for anybody who doesn’t live in Australia and thus cannot make sense of the previous sentence, an Australian mobile number starts with 04 and then has eight other digits (so, for example, would look like 04 123 456 78), while the typical landline starts with a zero and then a number corresponding to the state the phone is found in and would look something like this (01) 1234 5678, with the second digit in the brackets changing for each state.

It’s not a perfect system, by all means, because it relies on people doing what they’re told to keep keys separate from the coded numbers, but it’s as close as they come, considering the people being told to do it are almost universally wired to be obedient and find solving codes is almost second nature to them. It’s also not a perfect system because most of the numbers are for phones that have been destroyed, lost or are flat for 99% of the year, but it’s as close as we can get. I will admit being unable to contact people more often than not when I try to make a call, but when a colleague shows up with the number of the place he last stayed and I do manage to get through and am told he’ll try to kill me if I say the word ‘banana’, well, it really pays off.

And yes, that was a hypothetical example. I’ve never met anyone who would’ve killed me for saying ‘banana’. That’s just absurd.

Anyway. I’ve started writing up a synopsis of the past week or so and everything that’s happened (which is so, so much), but it’s nowhere near finished and is going to have to wait because I have to go (my laptop’s finished charging and that was all the time James was willing to give me here on the Internet). 

See you all soon, hopefully, and sorry about the hurried and half done post and the boring content. It's about 4:00 am in the morning right now and it all kinda ran away on me.

Thank Heisenberg

So I'm stationary at the moment, staying in a hotel 'somewhere' with the boys (that's James and the sidekick he insisted on bringing). We're a little busy so I've not had time to write anything up and I'm not sure how much I'll get done at the moment, but I'm giving it a shot while I can. I'll not be telling you where I am, because that would make my blog title redundant and we really can't have that. :P

I can't tell you how happy I am to be in a hotel at the moment. I'm about fed up with sleeping on trains and breaking into the homes of vacationing families for shelter. Which is incidentally how I got my camera. Sleeping on trains, that is, not breaking and entering. We try our best to leave no evidence of our presence wherever we stay to keep the cops from looking into anything, and that means sleeping on the couch or the floor and not stealing, amongst other things. I'm told somebody left their handbag on the train and that Sidekick (that's how I'll be referring to the third member of my travelling party for the duration of our travelling) was only trying to be helpful when he took it, but I was asleep for the whole thing so I can't really comment. I'd guess he just stole it, but then James has never been one for lying about crimes he or our associates have committed against the Blind.

Regardless, I now own a pretty damn good digital camera, and a new cord to charge it from my laptop only cost me twenty bucks. So that covers Acquisitions, and being that Sidekick was nice enough to do my job for me on this occasion I kind of got that day off. Insofar as Administration goes, there's been about a million and one petty little squabbles that I'm sure everybody experiences while travelling, so I'll not bore you all with tales of choosing where to eat and feeling paranoid every time a cop drives past. Actually, that only happened twice, so I'm not sure it really warrants an 'every time'.

News for the new year (sorry if this all seems a little disjointed, I'm kind of doing more than one thing at a time here) is that my brother's on a trip to Europe, doing some European whirl tour or something. He only saw fit to inform me he's spent the new year in London the day after it happened, though, so I'm a little worried that he's no longer keeping me up to date with everything he does. I'm not sure if he's just grown bored of telling me everything he does or if there's some other influence here making him decide to tell me less, but it really worries me that he just didn't bother telling me. It would be just like the boss to somehow stop my brother sending emails before He makes a move, or it could just be that Ben's given up on my still being alive, despite being so sure he'd know if I'd died.

I'm worried. My brother's off on the other side of the world and he didn't even bother telling me. This is so obviously the time for everything to go to hell. I'm going to skip the subterfuge for a moment and just say it outright, because as long as I don't explicitly state what may be happening then I'm pretty sure He wont notice. James was so sure there would be an opportunity that would be perfect, and right now I'm in a situation that is precisely the opposite. I'm terrified tomorrow I'm going to wake up and there won't be an email from my brother, but I'm also terrified that there will be, and it won't be about how cold but awesome London apparently is.

Man, this is so not how my blog post was going to go. I was planning on writing about the two Touched we've been meeting with yesterday and today in the city, writing up their profile like I said I would. They're nice guys once you look past this whole mess. They're part of the lucky few, living the whole double life thing. They've got jobs and everything. It's steady enough for them that they've given me about two thousand dollars for the bank account, which is great because it's been slowly ticking down towards nothing lately and a nice boost like this is exactly what I needed to keep everyone fed for the next few months. I think it's only the two of them in the whole city, too, which is a bit different to back home with the six of us. They're certain it's only them living permanently (which is not something I can say with certainty about our little clan) but they do get more colleagues passing through than I do.

Anyway, this was going to go on, but I kind of need to go. James wants to go out tonight to try and find a passer-by our two new friends mentioned visited them a few days ago who apparently sleeps on the trains, and he's getting antsy that I'm taking up valuable search time.

Not a lot of time, all is well

So travelling with two insane cultists isn't all that fun, but I will have a nice little story or two for you all if we're lucky enough to stop somewhere that has Internet long enough for me to write something substantial up. Also, I've gotten my hands on a proper camera (it's one of the nice little stories I'll have for you all), so you might all be lucky enough to get photographs of anything I figure is important in the future. Though you will all have to deal with a lack of fingers in the shots. Sorry to dissapoint anyone.

You'll love this one, Broeckchen

So I wake up Christmas morning and all my colleagues are already awake, sitting in a semicircle around my bed watching me sleep. Just so everybody knows, that's not normal behaviour amongst Touched, although sometimes when they get too Taken they will just sit there and stare at people for a while, so I guess you could say it's like a very, very extreme version of normal behaviour.

Naturally, once I noticed them all sitting there I assumed they were going to kill me and flew upright in a panic, ready to defend myself to the death. Turns out they just wanted to wish me a Merry Christmas and give me some presents. So yeah, kinda awkward. Unsurprisingly, it was apparently James' idea to do so in such a manner, and he's also at least obliquely responsible for the presents I got. Or the present I got and the present I'm meant to pass on. Or the Christmas cards. I'm not really sure what they're meant to be.

Well shi- shoot. I was going to say shoot

I see you've all met James. 


If I could make a request, can we please not talk about the 'content' of his post and comments? I'm sure you understand why I don't want what he wrote about discussed where prying eyes can find it. But I can say that when he says "do Not listen tO The bliNd foOl, andreW. To defy his light is to Bring UtTer ruin down upon you. Safety can Only be fOund in eterNal service." I believe him, and will be doing what he has told me to do and when he has told me to do it. 


I don't have a clue how he managed what he did, but at least it puts a new light on one or two conversations we've had recently. Lately, when we've been going over whatever plans we have for my colleagues and I, he's been telling me not to do anything rash or foolish if I 'happened to be alive after the solstice' and he also said that I was not to 'act' until it became obvious 'now' was the perfect time, and I think we can all see what he was referring to. He stressed the word 'perfect' several times and dropped 'obvious' in almost as much, so while you all probably want me to do what he's talked about right the hell now, I will be waiting until the perfect moment shows itself, and does so in such an obvious matter that I will be unable to ignore it. And besides, James has been doing this job for a very long time, so I'm not sure how long 'soon' is supposed to be.


And if one of you mentions something that subsequently closes whatever gap James seems to think is coming up, I will find you and kill you and I am not even joking. And then if I'm lucky, He will reward me for destroying a Heretic, nothing will change and I'll keep on going with my job. So please, play it safe and don't mention anything. On that note, I've changed my password and had a little chat with James. He's acting particularly dogmatic and denies having any memory of posting on my blog. He's on record as saying he wouldn't have any part in something so blasphemous as a blog about Him, so I'm 99% certain all of James' actual mind is back hanging from the place I can't mention without bleeding out my nose and I'm just talking to the Taken he's become again. 


Which is a problem, because he won't leave me alone. He's quite literally sitting right next to me as I write this, muttering mutinously about heretical behaviour and foolish Servants. When I tried to talk to him about privacy, leaving me alone and what-not, all he did was rant at me about our duty and 'His work'. Best I can tell, we've apparently been given a task when the boss dropped him back here, and that task seems to involve watching me constantly and planning a trip around the country to visit everybody in my phonebook. If I'm going to guess, whatever opportunity I'm supposed to take will probably show up during it, since it's going to involve a lot of travelling.


Anyway, it's about dinnertime and James is starting to get angry, so I guess this is it for now, or at least until we've eaten. And if anyone's interested, nothing happened to me in my hotel room at all. Quite literally, the most interesting thing that did happened was my head ached and my nose bled a little bit on Monday night right around when James says He came visiting down the street at the Internet cafe, so I guess my internal migraine-and-blood-based warning system is still functioning. Yippee.


Also also (It's a vocal habit I have, ignore me.)


Writing stories? That was your grand plan? Sorry to sound so fatalistic, but I'm fairly certain if that's all you guys can come up with then we're all in a lot more trouble than I thought we were. Seriously, I was expecting some huge move against the Touched or something, or a massive fi 


Damn it. Migraine's back like you wouldn't believe. I guess can't talk about that, either. Although I guess it's not really a surprise. Burn? I can say burn. Burning things - things that most definitely don't involve my boss and are most definitely not (paraphrasing myself here) 'unable to move every few nights to stay safe' might've helped a bit. There's a reason He uses fire sometimes - being that it is the most destructive force He could possibly imagine. But then again, maybe He just doesn't enjoy it when you do that, rather than is actually weakened by it. Like I said, I'm not one for theories.


Anyway, I really do have to go, James is about to start preaching to the entire cafe about my heresy if I don't stop now, and I'm not even joking. I'll probably be back after dinner, but then again, I'll have to convince James to come so maybe not.

See you all on the other side...

... I hope. So checked in today and immediately decided I hated my hotel room. Good new is I've found a 24 hour Internet cafe around the corner(ish). I've been stalling going back to the hotel since because the TV channels are lacklustre, there's no Internet there and the whole thing feels claustrophobic, but if I want to be back by twelve I need to leave soon. I'll be out of contact and protected by the hotel's security for the next two or so days, and the only people I plan on seeing will be delivering room service. I'm not even going to bother checking on my colleagues, since an order to stay in their rooms unless He says otherwise is more than enough to fulfil the responsibilities of my job, and frankly I'm not in the mood to manage crazies right now, all things considered.

I don't expect any funny business because you need a key-card to make the lifts work, but if there's one thing I've learnt in this job it's that there's no such thing as too paranoid, so I'll be sleeping with the knife under my pillow as always. I really hope I don't see any of you in the next few days, and I'm practically certain whatever you're planning isn't going to work, but good luck, nonetheless.

I'll probably post a report on the twenty third, if anything noteworthy happens and I'm still alive. If nothing goes down, then I guess I'll just comment here so anyone who cares will know I'm still alive. See you all then, or not. I guess we'll see.

Questions, Answers and the Solstice

M asking about trees gave me an idea, so I thought I'd set up a nice little blog post for anybody to ask me questions they have about my job or my boss. It's basically midday right now and I'll be hanging around here for most of the day, I figure, so feel free to fire away if you're reading. I'll post a comment saying when/if I have to leave my Internet connection, so until then, I'll at least be checking the blog every few minutes. I'll probably be on tomorrow, too - since I know for a fact this weekend is going to be uneventful, barring an unforeseen emergency.

And another thing - three days, twenty one hours and fifty seven minutes to the Solstice (did I get that right? I'm still not sure I made the time conversions correctly when I set the countdown clock on my laptop), and I have the hotel rooms booked. Yes, that's right, my colleagues and I are going to ground for the Solstice. On my insistence, might I add. That's is, of course, if I'm lucky and He doesn't show up between then and now to Walk us all somewhere for the big showdown you all seem to think is going to happen. I'm not the kind of Servant you ever see bothering Heretics anyway, so I'm actually quietly confident that even if He does come to take my colleagues somewhere, He won't need me. Or at least, that's what I've been hoping and praying for. I'll be honest in saying I have absolutely no idea what's going to go down on the Solstice or if anything will be going down at all, being that I'm not the kind of person who's all that well informed in my little organisation.

If I were Him, and everybody on the Internet was talking about how they were investing all their hopes in fighting back on a particular date, then I'd probably do the smart thing and just not bother anybody on that particular day. Actually now that I think about it, has anybody considered the possibility that the Solstice will come and go, and all that will happen is you'll spend all day looking out for Him and His 'children' while we all hide? It's what I'm planning to do, and I've heard absolutely nothing about special plans from anybody.

Then again, I do live in Australia, where we'll be having the Summer Solstice, rather than the Winter one, so maybe the opportunity for whatever it is you all think you're going to do only exists in countries that lie above the equator. Personally I have no idea how or why the Solstice was picked as the date to fight back. Maybe there's something I'm missing, being relatively recent to Internet discussions concerning Him, but it never made much sense to me.

So I guess, in the spirit of this post being one for questions, I'd like to ask, why did you guys pick the Solstice to fight back, and what are you planning to do? And yes, I know I work for the enemy, so if you don't want to tell me what you're doing, that's fine. But why the Solstice?

Celebrities and Siblings

So I'm back from the walk and I feel a whole lot better (that's a relative better, not a 'better' better). If anyone cares, the theory I mentioned in my comments two posts previous was correct. We just happened to be a little less lucky than I would've liked in following through on it, and had to chase the theory further than might've been necessary. It's still better than chasing runaways halfway across the country, though, so I guess I can't complain.


Actually, I can. I've got a splitting headache, my trilby's at 'home' at the foot of my mattress looking like it's been trodden on (because it has) and my favourite business shirt is covered in blood from another god damn nosebleed. All together that means the next time I need one of my colleagues to listen to me, I won't be able to dress up in my 'business' getup to intimidate them. And these are just the practical concerns.

I don't know where He is, and it's been hours since I actually saw Him, but I still can't shake the feeling He's watching me, like He needs to know I'm not about to kill myself or start running because of what He's made me do this time. Last I saw Him He was staring at the new girl, waiting for her to wake up so He can start with the theophany and divine revelations all over again and make sure she doesn't break free this time. I'm not sure how far she's gone, because she was resisting Him when she ran, but I have a feeling she'll be hanging from the Tree for most of the night before she's singing his praises with the rest of them.

I did some things I'm not proud of yesterday and today, but the real kicker is that each of them seemed like the best thing to do at the time. The first few were good, morally sound choices, even. After all, nobody on either side of the game benefits from a Touched (or a Taken, at the time I wasn't sure if this wasn't just a symptom of her losing it completely) running rampage on their own, so why wouldn't I lead the chase to go get her from where I was sure she'd ran to?

Turns out that's all bullshit and she tried to escape because His Touch hadn't held as well as He thought it would. We hunted her down and led Him straight to her in the process. It's ironic - really and truly ironic, in the classical sense of the word. 

Maybe it's just what I tell myself, but I know when we were chasing her I believed I was saving somebody's life in the future, protecting all the people she'd have to steal from and would probably kill without me looking after her. Not that I don't expect people to be killed now I've brought her back. Anything I do leaves people dying eventually, so I just chose the options that might mean fewer do.

I'm sorry. I shouldn't try to rationalise it. If I'd known - if He'd come before we found her and made me understand what was happening, I still would've done it to protect my brother and because I'd die if I didn't. On the note of my brother and because it was asked, Ben's one of the lucky ones - Blind as they come.

Well, perhaps not as Blind as they come. He was always convinced being twins allowed us some kind of passive telepathy, though I maintained it was always bullshit and we could never prove it either way. We certainly never had the same dreams when we were young, or I wouldn't be stuck here trying to make sure we never do. If he was right though, then maybe I'm poisoning him just by being caught up in all of this. Maybe he's keeping me sane by being free of it. Who knows? Perhaps Ben will wake up one day to find a tall, faceless man in the closet and there'll be nobody to blame but me.

Heh. And I promised myself I wouldn't tell anybody I have a brother. It's a shame I also promised I wouldn't lie to you all, what with M asking why I can't just run. That's the problem with having principles and secrets. You can't keep both, and I'm not sure I can claim to have either any more, seeing as how I just doomed somebody to a lifetime of insanity today because I thought she already was. The road to hell, indeed.

I was going to spend a little while here answering your question as extensively as possible, M, seeing as our time zones make communication difficult, but I'm really not in the mood and 'My old teacher might be Taken, but he isn't crazy enough to have forgotten to check my loyalties once a month and kill my brother if they're wavering - after all, that is part of the job He gave him' really should suffice for now.

I was also going to say something about Zero commenting on my 'so I should probably explain' post, seeing as he's another hero of mine. Seriously, the shit he's been through nobody deserves. If you're both still reading this (why would you be?) you guys are the people I wish I could've become. But I'm not in the mood to grovel in front of people so much braver and so much less selfish than I am like I should, because today is not a good day for anything other than pouring all my self hate and pity into the Internet and letting you all join me.

Because some days I take comfort in knowing that my brother's safe and ignorant. Some days I take comfort in knowing I keep my colleagues from killing for food and money, or just because they're bored and it's all they know how to do. You all know already that some days I take comfort in the bottom of a bottle. On the worst days, the only comfort I take is from knowing I'm on the winning side, where eventually it wont matter what I've done.

And then some days I take girls from their homes while they beg me for things I can't give - like freedom from Him and their little seven year old sister back from wherever He took her, and I don't take any at all.

Sleep well. I know I wont.

Goddamnit

I'm back and i'm fine but damn if i can't type shaking like this. I thought it'd help trying to talk to some sane people. I cant even type fucking people out properly this is so much  worse than when I was drunk this whole thing took me forever to type and I've made about a million errors it's not helping at all I can still feel His eyes on me watching me try to comfort her He's in her dreams I bet you anything. I'll post properly later. I need a walk or something I need to get away.

God, that sounds crazy reading it back, but I cant be fucked punctuating it now. You'll all just have to deal. I'm fine. I really am. I'm just terrified and feeling really dirty and well you all know what it's like with Him watching you and I can't shake the feeling. Heh. Like the lizard on the rock all over again, I swearotfuckingBran.

Small comfort for you all out there hopefully He can't be in two  places at once over too long a distance because He's going to be so busy tonight, you have no idea. But then maybe there's  one for each country - that's one of the theories, right? So maybe just Australia. I'll explain later what I can anyway. This whole thing took me like an hour and it hasn't helped a bit I have to go and I mean it this time.

So this is extremely awkward

I'm hella tired at the moment, so I'm just going to make this quick, while I eat whatever you call the last meal of the day (dinner) when it happens at 11:30 AM (lunch) and you skipped eating at breakfast time because you were out partying, and just apologise for the drunken ramblings of my last post. I've been out all night/morning on something of a bender with the 'McCafe Chick' I mentioned, who does indeed like Vodka but is not so much into guys, which is pretty much just my luck. Though it did make for some nice discussions on the nature of sexuality. Anyway, I said I'd make this quick, so back to it.

Alcohol is something of a coping mechanism for me in the aftermath of a visit from Him, which is not at all healthy, I know, but I'm not much concerned with health these days. It's a painfully long story, but the conclusion is that I'm allowed to keep writing as long as I'm careful not to say something I'll regret, and I also have a new colleague to look after, which was the reason for His visit in the first place. Of course, He didn't say either of those things in as many words, being that He doesn't say words at all, but I'll tell you all about that when I don't need to sleep so much.

And don't fear, faithful audience of three, I have retained my sanity after yet another visit from Him, as I will always do. I don't know what you want to call His effect on a person's brain in the general sense, but I do get quite a bit of that whenever He's around. It's the lizard on a rock as the shadow of a hawk flies by it all over again, pretty much every time, but I've learnt to deal with it. I always recover, though, because He would prefer I remain as useful as possible, and that means near enough to complete sanity.

I'm sure there's a whole lot of irony in there that I could be exploiting for gallows humour (and gallows is about right), but I really am tired. I'll see you all soon.

Oh, and I'm going to go back and edit out that spelling mistake in the labels of my last post, but the rest of it will stay unedited as a reminder to myself of why I can't be trusted with alcohol and an Internet connection. You have no idea how difficult it is for me not to go back and fix every spelling mistake I made. I might not know the first thing about constructing a sentence or even be particularly good at spelling (thank god for spell-check), but I absolutely loathe misspelled words, you have no idea.

So I should probably explain...

...before I get inundated with hundreds of complaints and claims of wifin' (of course I know what wifin' is, don't even ask) when somebody who knows what I'm talking about finds this blog.

Some of you (and by some of you I mean none of you, dear non-existent audience) are probably wondering why I'm not a gibbering mess with half his brain missing and the other half filled with razor-sharp crazy, just like every other person you've ever seen working for Him. I can't say for sure, because my employer isn't really the talkative type and my colleagues aren't big on questioning His motives, but from what vague indications I have and a little bit of assumption, I'm going to say it's because I do my job best when I'm able to count higher than five and actually remember the vast majority of what I do. Not that I don't have my moments. Nosebleeds and migraines are the most of it, but whenever I try to write something down in pencil it's a real struggle not to put an 'x' through every 'o' I write. Pen's are a little easier to use without provoking everybody's favourite spelling mistake, and keyboards work fine, but it's not like I'm completely immune to His compulsions.

Which brings me to the reason for my blog. It's a theory I've heard bandied about before, that seeks to explain why there seems to be an awful lot of records concerning Him nowadays that continue even into the midst of madness or beyond anything approaching convenience as one attempts to flee from Him. It's correct, as far as I can tell, and goes something like this:

He makes you write, and record and long to tell anybody and everybody, because surely you're just crazy and somebody will point this out and everything will get better, or because surely you're not crazy and somebody else will point this out and nothing will change, but hey, at least they can see Him too. And apparently, as long as you've got a shred of sanity and a tall, faceless friend, you have to write about it and let people know, even if He's not chasing you and doesn't really consider you worth noticing unless one of His other friends needs a splint or a shower. 

Which brings me back to the second and third labels for this post, 'The Job' and 'The Colleagues'. I thought I'd explain what I could without getting anybody killed (especially me), just for interest's sake. It's probably not wise, but very little of what I do nowadays is, and we've already discussed the 'must tell everybody' compulsions I'm having so there's no need to rant on about that being my excuse until I've proved I actually am crazy. Anyway, to sum up my job, I'd say I'm something of a caretaker, provider and advisor for a network of loosely affiliated, partially brain-dead cultists intent on making life hell for people who interfere with their business. 

I've heard us called many things, but the names getting the most truck on the Internet are Hallowed and Agents. Unfortunately for everybody involved, the person who trained me to do what I do referred to the Hallowed as two distinct groups of people, and it's both a habit I've acquired and one which I have desire to change.

The first is the Taken, people who have been Touched so thoroughly by His will that they have almost none of their own left. Between periods of activity focused upon fulfilling His orders, they frequently need to be reminded to eat, bathe or move at all. Some even need me to feed/bathe/move them myself when they're not otherwise occupied pulling on masks, chasing people and writing cryptic messages on the walls of wherever I've got them stashed for now.

The second is the Touched, which my old partner renamed the Hallowed once he learned of the term from me. I don't think I need to tell you where I learned it myself, and I think He might be angry if I did and you subsequently learnt where it was from. Though He does enjoy a challenge and a chase (as far as I can tell), so perhaps not. Still, safe and sorry and all that. 

Anyway, my partner used to call them the Touched because that was what they were - Touched by His will but not Taken by it. For the most part, they're normal, and they can do a pretty good impression of sanity if they want to, but they still love Him with a fervour beyond comprehension and they still like to write in code and capitals all over the walls whenever nobody is watching.

What most of you call Agents he called Servants, believing them to be 'below His notice and unworthy of His touch' but 'aware of their place and eager to serve'. I, myself, am a Servant (neither aware of my place nor eager to serve) while he was a Touched when we met, a Hallowed when he rewrote his little 'Operator's Handbook' and a Taken when our employer came around one time too many times for a favour.

Actually, now I think about it, Hallowed would've probably served as a better title for the Taken, what with the originator of the phrase believing Hallowed to be nothing but the corpse of a person acting in concert with His will. But that is neither here nor there. For clarities sake, I will be sticking to the original titles of Taken, Touched, Servant and Heretic to describe those caught in His web, lest my contradictory definitions confuse you all (yes, that's right - with a grand total of nine page views, ever, I am now going to my non-existent audience as 'you all'). Heretic, obviously, is the title for somebody being hunted by Him who is resisting in whatever manner they've chosen, be it denial, running or even by fighting. If they're stupid, foolish or brave enough to fight. Finally, there is the Blind, who'll I'll probably be referring to as 'the lucky ones' whenever I write about them, since they're oblivious to His existence and untouched by Him.

Which leaves me with 'The Office', the last of the labels I wrote out so I'd remember what I was trying to cover this time round, and which I'm considering taking out. Basically I was being smart and trying to remind myself to work in a reference to my current living conditions on the sly, but I think I'll have to give it to you straight. At present, I'm holed up in an abandoned building with some colleagues of mine that's luckily only two streets over from a McDonalds with free wi-fi and a McCafe which stays open 24/7. Which is how this all started, since I've been sleeping during the day and doing my best to avoid my hide-out during the night because of all the damn sleep-walking and screaming. Since here is the only place open 24 hours a day anywhere nearby that I can charge my laptop, I'm pretty much stuck here. Not that I mind. My current setup is pretty perfect really, which means with my luck I'll be forced to move sometime in the next week.

Anyway, my head's starting to hurt, which either means I'm getting a visitor tomorrow night or I need another cup of coffee to wake me up properly. Either way, I'm going to go get one and call it a day (or a night) here. Who knows, maybe I'll steal somebody's wallet and go clubbing with the cash. God knows I'm starting to run out of ideas for entertaining myself with free McDonalds Internet in the middle of the night that don't involved getting kicked out for indecency.