"You are a void... At least in my own darkness I can dream..."

Rush of nameless river in broadleaf forest, ancient riparian zone. The paleolithic huntress stalks her prey...

Six-headed mudskippers that feed on men, tentacled creatures that stink like a thousand corpses, giant sea urchins that paralyse their prey before devouring them while they're still alive... Yes!

Need. Now.

They think they're in on the joke that they are. The irony is becoming them.

The pufferfish's default expression of rigid shock seems designed for this sport. Manus fati, at it again.

DOLPHINS ARE PERFECT FOR MARTYRDOM. THEIR SMOOTH, SIMPLE FEATURES WOULD SAVE OUR SCULPTORS MANY HOURS.

You can't shake the feeling that he knows something you don't.

'Grammage'... Esoteric... Stationary concept...

It hadn't occurred to her that she would have a choice.

Boxes of popcorn on the floor around them, a stop-motion beast roaring flame. She laughs, he pulls her closer.

A thousand stars reflected and warped in the black of his helmet, the edges of the universe all purple and blue.

Drugs.

A SYMPTOM OF LIBERAL PSYCHOSIS.

Her subconscious was stuck, reliving the event over and over again.

It's more than nice. This is the nastiest, most plague-ridden shit you've ever seen -- even if there's a bit of woo woo involved.

There might be something to it. Salt causing a reaction in the servers, rune patterns reorienting certain signals...

She's splitting herself across all the different formats and functions. Incredible.

CASCADE: This technique is over two centuries old, developed by Mircean monks in order to withstand the inquisition. KINDRED: Woah... And you can teach it to me? CASCADE: Yep, done it myself many times.

STEADFAST AGAINST THE FASCIST NSST NSST. MAGNIFICENT.

Divine severer of threads, bearing a new set of shears.

On the verge of saying something which she'll decide to keep to herself.

You see them now as puncture wounds. Bullet holes. Shrapnel from an ancient bomb.

'I need you there', she would say, if she could.

If we love wrinkles so much, why aren't we smoking?

Beauty subsumed by style. The wearer is not the point, the statement is.

A wearable, holographic pet? Sick, all aesthetics and no shit.

He just permanently forgot his first handjob from a boy. They were fourteen, watching foreign movies in the dark. They never looked each other in the eye again.

ALL THESE MEN SHOULD BE CASTRATED.

The shelf behind her is stuffed with papers, handwritten. She isn't short on study time, but she isn't sending her work in.

Potion.

You can already see how. A lightness of the mind, a willingness to let go of yourself. You could step straight into the void with her if you dare.

They both avoid the topic because they both have something to hide.

The self forms around another self. It has no independent being, cannot verify its own existence.

An image comes to you, one you've thought about for a long time.

TOLERANCE IS THE SAME AS ENCOURAGEMENT. THIS WOMAN IS A CATALYST OF PERVERSION.

Not a cryptonym but a role -- keeping her another step removed from the voice on the phone.

Bullshit. Spear mammoths, stack hides.

A man leans over a fluted balustrade, savouring a pre-bed cigarillo. The Noscorrentes sea churns like liquid mercury. At his back, a suite of malachite and glass -- and a figure detaching itself from the wall, gun in hand.

His right pant pocket creases around something narrow and weighty. A switchblade.

Eyes aren't bloodshot. He's close to sober -- his reactions will be better than last time.

Eyes aren't bloodshot. He's close to sober -- minimal reaction delay.

A pale, screenlit face watches in expectation.

Rivers of waterlogged rainbow silk, clogging the canals. The body of the radio host soon to join them.

HISTORY CALLS.

You hear their chitinous antlers crashing together like tiny little falchions.

Like a sad, dry snowball.

The beast seeks to know his audience of giants.

He doesn't care about the money. The competition was all.

Checks