Grey Matter

A temporary cargo storage shed.

A tower of different media players welded together.

Behind the advertisement -- a path.

Safety guidelines for contractors, stamped by a Portofiran office.

An entire water tank just for one apartment.

A weather-worn building looms over you, its back to the road. Yellow-beige plaster peels like parchment, exposing old brickwork.

The control panel glows steadily, its purpose fulfilled.

Steel stairs, worn smooth. Something attracts more than just the upper residents.

Unused maintenance supplies, overseeing the result of their neglect.

Cellulose-fat silverfish scatter as you approach.

A theatre of inorganic decay.

The structure here is buckling, walkway's unstable overhead.

'No vehicles past this point.'

An identification plate above the door has been pried off.

A circulation mechanism for the smell of stale beer.

Cobblestones awash in early morning lights. Vespar hovers by the Fogged Mirror's doors, his cap tilted against the drizzle.

It's never off. PSEUDOPOD has already absorbed a lifetime's worth of daytime TV.

Mind the gap.

Laminate flooring peels away to reveal metal beneath.

An assortment of junk mail.

Clothes and bedding becoming one.

The bomb tore right through metal.

Two bottles, one glass.

Psychology textbooks and heavily leafed notebooks.

A dented tipping bucket, tallying fleeting acts of gratitude.

The sign promises fresh fish.

Someone's left a book here.

Tally marks -- rations and calories. Survival calculated by the month.

Your odds of winning this lotto are roughly 0.000658%.

Cardboard stacks of magazine back issues -- doomed to soak.

On the verge of collapse, worn away by water.

Does it make you feel powerful? To live so many lives in sequence and in parallel?

Pretty clever, isn't it?

They say that, once, a whole tribe stumbled upon the valley during their winter migration, and they became enamoured with those plants --…

Beware, CASCADE. You have seen how easily you can be shelved. As soon as your assignment is over, all bets are off.

It doesn't have to be so hard. You wrestle with the guilt, the shame. But if you just said 'the world did this to me' -- some of that…

Some say the Philosophical Spy is simply the Manus Fati's finger puppet. Others call it a walking massive depressive episode. But one thing…

Vending machines are basically a ten-thousand year old grift, you ever think about that?

It all comes down to you, Repentful Spy. Ninety-six years of human suffering -- most of which you weren't even alive for -- it's time…

Be the shroud the city needs. Walk the streets, snuffing out lanterns and hope. Be an acolyte of Gloom and spread the word.

How many full moons have you seen in your lifetime?

It's time to begin. Turn the scalpel inwards and then peer into the orifice you have made.