Bentley sneezed, right into his prompted inner arm. He sniffled right after, and continued to look at the sorry scene that he and the boys were on.

Empty streets, stores not only closed—but “forever”, and the very few that did walk and put things on, looked utterly miserable. And as Bentley glanced at them, mostly the ladies, they either shrunk before him or looked past him.

“Fucking Trends,” Bentley shook his head. “Trying their victim or destroyer shit and look what happens? The world turns to shit. I’m sure if we even book it to the ferries, it’s going to be a drag wherever we end up at. Dickheads ruined the damn mood. Forever.”

“Y’know, I’d love to discuss this very, very highbrow roundtable conversation if my mouth wasn’t sandpaper at the moment,” Gently quipped dryly.

“Yeah, he needs to keep it hydrated,” Chimney nodded. “Keeping appearances, y’know?”

It took a pause, but Gently laughed out—it echoing across what was supposed to be a bustling city street.

“Nice,” Gently admitted defeat. “You better be lucky you’re hot, otherwise I would’ve bit back so hard-“

“So you do that too?” Bentley quipped with his hands in his pockets.

“It isn’t funny when you do it, in fact, I’m super offended. I’m about to cry, Bent—”

“I fucking hate you, Gent—” Bentley smiled as the two laughed.

He glanced over, Harvey still nervous to the point of sweating. Bentley knew the kid—despite being around the same age as the rest of them, was a bit of a softie. That he isn’t broken up by the world yet. So everything had to be an approach with him.

“What’s up, Harv?” Bentley put a hand on his clamy shoulder—despite fabric separating the two. “You can dogpile on him: it’s fine because who cares if he sucks dick and he can literally beat you up if you actually mean what you joke about with him, and I know you’re way too nice for that latter bit—”

“H-how can you guys be so—so--!” Harvey exclaimed. Not in rage or annoyance, panic. “Be so—I don’t know! The world’s about to—and we’re out trying to look for a place to eat!”

“Well,” Bentley begun, trying his best to ease his tone. “The world was never stable for us, especially for Gent and I. Iunno about Chim, he’s floating in all that privileged Shiftication money—”

“Fuuuuuck off, dude,” Chimney managed to groan while talking, causing Gently to laugh more, slapping his leg.

“And to frame things into perspective… Well, you might as well go out doing some pleasurable, right? All that grief, the crying, the final testaments and words—that can come later if we do exist beyond the flesh or whatever. Here? We go out like those blokes from Titanic—y’know, those band members. Everyone remembers them from that moment because they’re bloody awesome.”

Harvey still looked at him, nervously, jittery. Bentley gripped his shoulder tighter.

“Think on it while we get something warm to eat. Yeah?”

He looked down, but he nodded. Bentley smiled, that was all he needed.

The boys walked up to some sandwich shop, with a focus on outdoor dining. They approached the waiter who guarded the fenced off seating.

Said gentleman started quaking a bit, as he was around their age, knowing exactly who they are—even though the similarly shaking new addition.

The image, Bentley saw, didn’t sit right with him.

He sighed loud and dramatic, because he knows why.

He dug into his pocket, got his rather fat wallet, and pulled out a credit stick.

The waiter just looked at him, confused.

“Can we get a table?” Bentley said, annoyed. “Take your time with the orders and what not. We promise this is just a meal and nothing more. In fact, since the hardshells are in town, call them in if I raise my voice if it makes you comfortable. Are we good?”

The waiter nodded, taking the stick, and opening the fencing and letting them in, before closing it and bolting.

Bentley raised his head to the gray-white skies.

“I—FUCKING—hate that Yank girl,” Bentley shouted but didn’t put effort in it. He proceeded to reach for his back, and pulled out his bat that was tucked between his jacket, and sat down with a slouch.

Gently smirked, his hooded appearance only allowing his lower face to be shown, “To be fair, you don’t know if she was from America—”

“Oh, I know,” Bentley grimaced. “Loud, ‘passionate’, meddling into affairs and making shit worse—she’s a proper Yankee Statue of Liberty. Bitch.”

“You’re just mad that she whipped you without whipping you,” Gently looked at his menu casually.

“Oh, I’ll amend that if I ever see their lot again…”

“And funny how you chatted up tons of American girls and used the synonyms to say those were the best parts of Americans and they embodied an entire people,” Chimney reminded him with a wry smirk.

“I still stand by every single thing that I’ve said—” Bentley pretended to be offended, raising his chin away from the table and crossing his arms.

“Uh, besides… T-the Statue of Liberty is from France, so—”

They all turned to see a smiling Harvey, hoping that his quip worked.

Admittedly, that cracked a smile back onto Bentley’s face.

“You’ve been in a crabby-ass mood this whole day…” Chimney pointed out. “If anything, those news reports should be vindicating from a standpoint, right?”

Bentley rolled his eyes. Trying not to think about that woman.

"...I guess. Never liked that concept. Why be reminded of shit that I just don't want to dwell on? This is why I do the shite I do--other than the mental parts of me. I rather be happy and forget about it."

***

Tracy drunkingly tried to “conduct” the wonderful movie OST she was engrossed by, only to spill some of the wine she held in a glass all over her fingers, pathetically craning her head forward and lick at them.

Realizing how pitifully rabbit she was being, she snorted and then hiccupped, all out of tears as she fell back into her futon.

She put on Titanic (1999), the type of cinema she adores. The sweeping, romantic epic that spans four hours, also the type of movie that shouldn’t have worked in any and all circumstances. Again, four hours about a tragedy no one cared about in passing, deliberately monochrome until the sinking of the ship—as it’s tented with blue, a legal spat that halted the production for a year before running behind again, and the fact Jim Cameron’s the director. As much as she loved it, she wished was shelved like that movie he’s currently working on that’s completely CGI. She would’ve loved to be Rose.

She tried to stifle a laugh, but realized no one was there to act for. So what came out was pure delirium.

“You wouldn’t manage to pull off Helga…” she slammed herself, taking another gulp of wine, splashing more on herself on her ruined, straggly night clothing. Other stains showing that she’s barely moved for days.

How bold it was for her—to act like she still had talent or talent justified anything. It goes to show, even in her last possible moments of her ruined life, that she never learned her lesson in the first place.

No more tears to hide behind, no more thoughts that ensures her survival—she managed to fuck up total liberation in addition to the moral life she had. And the “insurance” she ruined it all for is about to run low.

It’s fitting. Only now, when the world’s about to break, is where all clarity’s granted for her. Contentment. But she’s not going out with dignity, like the nobles she once upon a time, thought herself to be. Or even the tragic underclass that got screwed over. She’s nothing, and she’s just going to wait for the final push of whatever the Noumena offers to go out like this. A washed up harlot, alone in her apartment watching movies on repeat.

In the movie, a priest character is trying to reassure the doomed people with his prayer as he clings to life. Tracy, always getting chills at this part, mouthed the words:

“The former world has passed away…” And after that, she too started to tremble like the man. Awaiting death.

***

“Welcome to Hell, boys and girls,” Scarlett’s superior said as they landed, and opened the hatch—creating a platform to exit on. “Due to shit going off and hitting the fan, you all are stationed here and on the look out for what’s coming next. What’s next? We don’t got a fucking clue, but it’s coming.”

Scarlett had her suit on, as well as the others. She and the others had to watch the footage of what happened that night, and the idea of things that can easily break into it or becoming a makeshift coffin for herself are options she didn’t like at all. But again, she doesn’t have options anymore.

They filed together, and marched out in formation. Once she got outside, she glanced about without moving her head, to take in the battlefield that was some gimmick city’s zany street corner.

The buildings were in half-mast or were turned into dust, the Research Center struggling to connect together and rebuild, and more importantly, Researchers digging out pieces of Enforcer armor out of the streets. Analyzing it or retrieving it out of respect.

This is fucking insane, she thought to herself. Couldn’t vocalize it, much less have a conversation about it. They’re always watching her, waiting for her to slip. She’s been whipped enough to know that she’s not only persona non grata, but also expendable. And the swarms of people that got wiped out here were considered the cream of the crop.

Nevertheless, the street proceeded to open up, the canopy that acted as a base that night, now in its tunnel mode. They all continued to march.

“Full discourser, to give you the rundown of how things are around here—the reason why there was a crowd that reacted to the wanted Trend was due to a bad call of an Enforcer like yourselves. Panicked when the beast was clawing at the Research Center, believing that it’s going to burrow through the ground and find her way to the shelters. Even overpowered his superior thinking he was right. If anyone tries to do something like that, hero without a basis… Well…”

As the Superior talked, they marched throughout the Nexus base, standing before a vaulted door and waited for it to open.

The screaming was so potent, it rattled Scarlett’s helmet.

As the squad walked in, they saw their fellow Enforcers—disrobed, literally fighting against health workers and themselves.

Various wounds—wounds with a toothy maw, wounds that had multiple eyes that had to be carefully removed, wounds that not only exposed veins but enlarged them until the point they spilled out. All combinations of vile and imaginative body horror.

Scarlett heard someone throwing up into their helmet behind her. She was still too much in shock to even register what was going on.

Their Superior only turned towards them. “This will be your price for it.”

As she looked around, she noted something even she would’ve gotten.

This is just another prison for her. Just with the illusion of choice and duty.

***

Aiko faded in and out of her parents yelling, only wanting to respond to the parts she wants to say something about. The rest, the 80%, was just pure madness with the origin of fear.

“THAT—is why we are packing our things and we are leaving this accursed place!” Her father said, yelling to the point of straining his voice.

“Your father is right—we have nowhere else to go—and the scales are teetering by the second!” Her mother agreed.

“So, we’re doing exactly what we’ve done years ago?” Aiko bluntly said with a disappointed grimace. “Abandoning home with our tails between our legs?”

“Young lady,” all compassion dropped from his tone, staring her down—which she managed to meet back despite the clear thumping of her chest. “You do not know the hell that is evacuations. There is no mercy, there is no patience, no nothing! I am not subjecting my family through that!”

“Okay,” Aiko dueled back. “Take everyone but me. I’ll stay here and if things turn out fine, I’ll be able to hold down the fort from invaders or interlopers—”

“We are NOT leaving you!” Mother, now tear-eyed. “We do not understand why you have ended up like this, but it’s for these games to end! Here! Right now, Aiko!”

Aiko looked down, and started to laugh under her breath. “You think what I do is some game…”

Her father waved his arms in dismay, “How could it not be?! With these extreme things and extreme concepts! How can one make a living like this? How could one continue living like that?!”

“…Better than you, right now,” Aiko bluntly answered. “Ever since I could remember, you both made this… Culture of fear. Understandable, given what happens everyday… Minds smarter than any of us have broken and it is understandable for you to become this way, I have sympathy. But there’s no… There’s no reassurance, there’s no break from it. We uproot and we move away from the slightest trouble, to the point that I know this is the smart choice, that I know that this is the perfect time to run… But I’m tired. Sick and tired of it all. I broke because I’m making up for the time I’ve wasted, due to your outlook in life. No matter how extreme or dumb it is, because damn it, I rather risk life than to be the living dead like you.”

Her parents, who normally would be unnerved. Saddened. Scared. Just had the looks of being agasted.

Aiko got up. “I’ll leave now, get out of your hairs… You can disown me as you leave with…” Her mouth clamped down and twitched, as if she tried desperately to avoid a word now. “…Them. Just promise me. Live.”

She went out the door, and felt neither of them run out after her.

Aiko stared out to their lawn, wanting to take the next step.

Only for her to sit on them, and just sit there. For all her talk, she too became frozen in the moment.

***

River, her falling apart model of laptop in hand, scrolled down the various takes on an important speech on a forum.

One was Davenport, given glowing eyes, as he faced the camera with the words “BEYOND CONFIDENCE”, a drawing of a man cranking some machine to “BEYOND”, a horrible mash up of Davenport and Buzz Lightyear of Toy Story, also glowing eyes, an actual still from the speech and then cuts to a grizzly aftermath of a Shift—causing the still to say “sorta confident”, and finally a mock up of End of Acion’s poster, but instead of Rei, it’s Davenport’s head.

Looking at them reminded her that she really is a pursuer of trash.

The last one sucked because it didn’t get the point of the movies at all—

But she closed it, carefully, as the hinges are literally held together by tape, and walked down the stair, sighing to herself to what’s coming next.

“Hey Kiddo,” her elderly father greeted her with his soft tone, despite his ruined throat. He lowered and put away his newspaper onto the small table next to his couch, which is holding up his folding walker. His hair a fading, spikey buzzcut, very rotund. “Feeling better?”

“Much better, yeah,” River answered sweetly. She looks over to her mother.

“Yeah, she’s still hacking away at that damn puzzle still, don’t worry—”

“Guy, I’ll focus on the puzzle and will come over there to hit you at the same time,” her mother, just as worn and visibly aged, had a cut that River always called the “Jaime Lee Curtis”, greying to the point of darkening again, as her glasses are on the cusp of falling of if it weren’t for the loop resting behind her neck. She was in a walker-wheelchair hybrid, where she had a mat attacked where she was putting the puzzle together on.

“You told me that hearing aid’s been acting wacky, Rosey,” Guy grinned despite himself, River could only shake her head in amusement.

“It is,” Rosemary answered, still sorting through pieces. “You just don’t know when it’s on or off yet.”

“That is a pretty good plan, not gonna lie,” Roland came in, her older brother. Long hair, skinny, was just as bland and/or terrible at fashion just as River. “But that’s good to hear, sis. We were worried that your… Healing, I guess? Was taking way too much outta you.”

“They say if you get sent to the hospital three times in the space of a month, you get a free sandwich,” Guy joked, laughing as he belly shook.

“That’s it. When I complete Paris here, I’m coming over to give you a piece of my mind—” Rosemary quipped while still looking at the puzzle.

Roland laughed, which was a rare sight these days. River knew how much this all weighed on him, trying to ease their parent’s… Well, everything. It was nice.

Had it last for a few more seconds.

“…Actually, yeah—” Roland scratched the back of his head in panic. “Mayb—Yeah, I gotta check if that impacts our plan or not, I’ll go into my room and—Call ‘em up before they call us.”

Guy nodded, watching his son depart to his room with a solemn look.

“Remember to eat something!” Rosemary looked up and only got to see his back.

River looked down.

“I’ll… Go help him.”

The two looked at her, a bit thrown.

“You don’t need to throw yourself into that mess yet, honey,” Rosemary cooed. “We told you, we want you kids to relax before all of that happens.”

“Before you get old and fucked up,” Guy crosses his arms. River knew that it was patterned with scars.

But that was the psychology. The very thing that drove Roland to help early. And the very thing that broke her.

River nodded, “They might need like, personal things and details from my visits. Proof or whatever. It’s the least I can do and I’m gonna get asked anyways.”

There was trepidation shared between the couple, before sighing and nodding.

And once she walked away from them, into Roland’s room, she sighed deeply herself.

She knocked on the door, and then pushed the door.

Roland, looked up from his wrap-around desk—covered in reminders and papers with his smartphone pressed to his ear. “…I’m on hold and that’s gonna take hours now, but what?”

“…I have to be real with you,” River said.

“Please tell me that you’re gonna shout some reference or something… Can’t really handle… Stuff right now.”

“…I’m scared. I work—if you can call it work—for you and the company on part time and yet, I’m unravelling, I’m breaking. I see the future of doing this and I uh, I can’t handle it, I guess. People say I’m smart and resourceful but I can’t even fathom how to toggle that to prove you all right. And yeah, I’m complaining about compliments again, but you have to understand the pressure from that—how those As from high school was from hardwork yes, but I don’t think I can keep that up… I got this, I did this thing, purely because maybe I can still keep up, go full time with you, and struggle less and keep doing this. You deserve it, Mom and Dad definitely fucking deserves it… And at the end of the day, everything can be fine again.”

River tried to smile, at her brother who sported a face of disbelief.

“R-right…?”

Roland shifted about in his chair. Already setting the phone down, putting his fingers through his hair. Just straight at his desk, looking down.

“Can you… Can we just talk about this later?”

River’s face settled back to it’s natural form. “Yeah.”

She left, moving past her parents without a word, going upstairs.

“It was worth the shot, siVis,” River said to herself. “Thanks for the epiphany. Operation: Hermit is going to happen and sooner than expected.”

***

“It’s a vacatiiiiionnnnn,” Stark stressed the n’s, as she continued to paint on her canvas.

“This place is becoming a Termnsys City, Stark,” Blaire bluntly told the truth.

Stark used the blue paint to curve upwards against her piece, using her free hand to grip onto her wrist, “It’s first reaction mania, you know it, sissy~”

Blaire, leaned against the frame of the door, just sighed loudly, shaking her head. “She’s not going to listen to me, Mother. Maybe you can do something.”

She backed away, as Stark hummed and glanced at the door.

Her mother was spindly, sickly almost. Other than that, she was the spitting image of her daughter—barring the hair—which she had none and wore a tropical bandana, and the long arms. Her features were still gaunt, and the way her bandana wrapped around her head, gave the impression that she constantly wore a glaring expression—when in reality it was blank.

“…My beautiful bird,” Stark the I began. “There’s nothing left for us… here.” Her Caribbean accent was notable, and the fact that English was a second language gave pause to her sentences. “They will relocate us the hard way anyways.”

“Or!” Stark retorted, dabbing her clean paint brush into a green, “This is all an overreaction, there’s going to be a hard period of destabilization with the new status quo, and we’ll look back on this as a—understandable, but overreaction! We’re going to struggle for a bit, Mama, it’s just scary going uphill than it is going down it. You don’t throw yourself down it because you’re going to hit the ground regardless, him? That’s with this! I promise you all lots!”

“We’re only going to the place your father goes to whenever he needs time to himself,” Mrs. Terri continued. “Secluded, away from this noise. Can you at least entertain going for two weeks or so?”

Stark looked at her Mama. She set the brushes and paint supplies down.

“People are still trying to pick themselves up, Mama,” Stark said softly. “And if any wander over here and I happen to be there…”

Mrs. Terri shook her head.

“A-and, y’know uh—” Stark started to fumble, losing her words herself for a moment before she found them again, “The Masters, they’re going to be coming as well—coming here. I have to be there for that at least…”

“Okay,” Blaire interjected. “If my attempts of moonlighting comes under scrutiny again, I’m gonna pull this example out. Keeping it banked.”

Mrs. Terri began speaking again. “Do you realize… That fighting an uphill battle, is not going to feel good once you’re up the top.”

“At first,” Stark politely refuted. “There’s pain, there’s rush of biological everything, and your mind needs to remind itself that it’s in a body, I understand—”

“It’s hard to believe that, child, when you should know that it’s all that you think about after. Including aches and pains that do not just disappear because of your valor. It is a concept where fools dive recklessly into, as if it is a universal law of the universe.”

Stark had there, taking at all in. It was a few moments before she rose her hand.

“Tell ya’ what. I’ll stay here and watch the house, update you all via transmissions, and again—since the Masters are coming here, I can run with them if things do go topside. I promise, 100%, that as soon as I realize that things are bad… Wait.” She rocked in her seat for a bit, before continuing, “Raaather, I promise that after things get too rough for me, I’m coming to you guys. Better?”

A black, featureless helmet, with eye slits and vents near the mouth aside, popped over Mrs. Terri’s shoulder.

“I really don’t like the sound of that correction, Stark…” his voice, echoed and concerned.

“I promise you all that I’ll be fine and I’ll see you again,” Stark smiled. “Trust me, Adam.”

The tall boy himself took a pause, before nodding to Mrs. Terri and Blaire.

“Hope you know, if it does go pear-shaped, it’s all on you,” Blaire shrugged and closed her eyes. “So, you better be safe or else, I’m going to have the final one up over you.”

Stark giggled at that, she saw Adam wave shakingly.

“Call as soon as you get in trouble, okay?” he said, stern.

Stark nodded, and looked to her Mama.

“…You know we only love you, yes?”

“Of course, Mama. And I know it’s hard for you to express any kind of emotion. I’ll always be patient with you all. It’s not an excuse, it’s not a weakness. Every single part of you is genuine and that is good, despite the possible bad.”

Mrs. Terri had her own turn to take that in. Ultimately smiling a bit, or attempting to before giving a thumbs up and walking away.

“…You’re too good for your own good, y’know that?” Blaire simply said, before grabbing Adam by the hand and helping him walk away.

Stark sat there and listened for them to walk out of the door. And after a few minutes, she does.

She then exhaled, from the belly, trying to ease the weights that were placed on her, along with the others that already existed.

“Okay okayo okay okay okay oka okay”

She turned back to her canvas, and dipped her fanning brush into a red.

Her hand started to twitch, and she tried her hardest to stable it. No avail.

She used her free hand, and it eased things. Much to her relief.

She begun her stroke.

And her hand went against what she intended, going right versus life, causing her to smear red paint across her hardwork.

She broke the brush by gripping it too hard.

And she proceeded to twitch all over, causing her pieces to fluctuate, responding to her cold, aching anger that was completely silent.

Seething, her pieces twisted as her body did, her hair raising and being pulled up. She went hunched over, looking at her still twitching hands and just staring at them.

It took way too many minutes, but she started to sob, getting control over herself again.

“W-why can’t they just let go—all of them?” she managed to word. “Wh-en allll it does it hurt them?!”

Shooting up, clutching her head, “T-hey know it hurts them! And yet they let it eat them whole! They hate every single minute of it, and yet they surround themselves with it! They give in when life is a series of chances that build! Why am I the weird one?! Why is that the accepted behavior?!”

It took her more than a few minutes, but she started to calm down, panting one moment and gasping the next.

“…That’s all this is and all it will be…” Stark muttered to herself. “And I’ll do my best… In trying to break that nasty chain whenever people come near me…”

She sat back down, looking at the painting. She sighed wistfully. Knowing that and trying to save the painting, will be not only hard, but hard on her.

But she has to do it. And she got to work.

***

Desireé shot awake, hoping to herself that the action was apart of some dream. She began to sob to herself when she realized that isn’t the case.

Shivering, she catapulted from the ground, to scan the horizon like a scared fawn.

She was in some spacious underground tunnel, possibly unused as the surfaces where not only smooth, but the smells were pristine.

The girl dreaded to look into the reflective surfaces, and when she decided to give into that curiosity, she only saw her face. Only her face.

She shrunk away from the sight, crawling away until she hit a wall against back, gnashing her teeth and hands hovering before her face.

“why didn’t i die,” was more a statement than a question. She then began screaming, bleating, “WHY DIDN’T I FUCKING DIE?!”

She banged her head against the hard metal. Over and over again, the beat having a rhythmic clang to it, but unstable. Once her ears caught wind of it, and her enlightenment made the terrible connection, she stopped, continuing to wail out. Alone.

Or so she thought.

“That’s no why for a Trend to act.”

She stiffened and turned her head towards the long corridor. Truly, she knew it was over for her.

Until she saw who he was.

His hair was braided and kept up in various different directions. His face was round, and had very rough and unhealthy skin, that was tan. He was grinning, his teeth crooked in paces, his lips thin, and despite the doughy skin that hung from his skull, the smile made his face angular due to the risen cheeks.

And if that wasn’t enough, he was drenched in a living oil.

The black substance covered him, the rest of his body, as it writhed and expanded. It was even to the point where this man had some dripping from his eyes, which had a ring of navy in each.

The intriguing part of it all was that, despite the substance, it didn’t reflect the light or the surfaces, or even Desireé’s panicked gaze.

“Y-you ch—sc—should get away from me—” Desireé warned but sounded so little. “I-I am dangerous… A monster…”

“Um,” the oily man rolled his head to an angle along with his eyes. “Yeah. It’s why this display is… Pretty pathetic. You’re a Trend, woman! Act like it!”

“What are you, some kind of fanboy? For such a morbid, depraved subject?”

“I’m a man that thrives on those things…” he grinned somehow bigger, longer. “I can’t wait to breakthrough.”

Desireé blinked, mostly for the tears in her eyes… Which now sported the sole ring around each of her pupils. Neon green.

“Break…? I don’t…?” Then the realization hit her. “You WANT to be a Trend?”

“Of course! My life’s more or less ruined and over anyways! But at the same time… What liberation! What freedom! I was a nobody… Now I get to be somebody and say and think whatever I want, whenever I want!”

She had to admit, on some level Desireé found his rabid jubilation… Infectious.

All it took was the realization of this, shaking her head furiously.

“I don’t understand—these people, me—we’re just dangerous monsters that have to be put down for the betterment of society, a-and—”

The oily man sighed, and did a gesture as if he’s crossing his arms.

“If you’re gonna preach to me, at least use your own opinions? I know you’re pop star #4567, but Iunno… Anything about you that’s… You?”

Desireé immediately shot a glare, snarling coming out of her throat, but sounded nothing like the dainty tone she had.

The oil man only raised his covered hands. “I’m highly opinionated. It didn’t earn me friends or whatever, but at least everyone knows what I think and most importantly, who I am. Everything I do, I express it, and make it known. And nobody has the guts to do that. Not this era anyways, where we’re whipped into being genial worms under some imaginary pressure—”

“Imaginary?!” Desireé shouted, making it feel odd to get this worked up, this passionate.

“It IS imaginary! We have this new awakening of the world, finally the death of all these false and chickenshit ‘standards’ that never meant anything at all, and we’re scared?! People being scared?! It’s a new start, the freshest we’re ever going to get other than pure destruction—and we don’t end up dead right here!”

“But people have died! Many have!”

“And we should embrace and take hold of the things that killed them in their honor. We keep refusing and we are constantly humbled again and again. This is why I’m becoming a Trend. I’m going to FORCE the world into this new order, this new faith. I’ll destroy everything that’s holding us back and I have the power to do it now. I can make nightmares real.”

Desireé simply shook her head. “Well then. Enjoy getting killed the moment they catch you. Instead of ushering some new age, you… You die and they want nothing to do with you. You’ll never know true peace or rest.”

“…Is that what your angle was…? Is?”

She looked at him, with widened, confused eyes. Searching up and down to see what he meant.

The oil man started to prowl slowly towards her, with extended shadowy finger aimed at her. “You want to go out in hopes they figure out who you are… That was your hope in all that. Which, by the way since there’s no uh—TV or whatever down here—like, hearing what I heard echo down here… You DON’T want to be a monster without a name. All of that, you wanted to die in a tragic event, all with the hope of wanting them to do those documentaries, and murals, and talk about you longer than your years alive… I’m right, huh?”

Her eyes welled up with tears before he was finished. Around the part of “a monster without a name”.

Desireé got on her hands and knees, head arched downward as she sobbed what felt like the millionth time.

“And it didn’t work… Why didn’t it work…?”

“Because you’re not done.”

She gasped as she felt his hand on her arm, and he pulled her up onto her bare feet. She just gave him a teary look of shock again.

“Like I said. I expressed myself all the time when I was a human. But you… You never had something that was your own, right? You wore labels, you had things prepared—that eats away at someone’s like… Sense of self. You’re trying to figure that out while doing it, and you didn’t go all the way, either. Monsters in horror movies keep coming back because branding monkies get greedy to suck on the tit of the cow they’re milking dry. You. You can make that shit mean something.”

A shaking, weeping girl began to still. Desireé wiped her eyes.

“You cannot hold yourself accountable for thinking on a higher level than these morals anymore. To think is to live. And you have your right to lord over these smoothbrained mothefuckers.”

And with her mind cleared, N’atural nodded.

“In that case, I have a lot of think about… And act on. I’ll keep appearing again and again. Until something is done, something they cannot ignore anymore.”

The oil man hurriedly nodded his head, his grin almost an uneven V. “Awesome, awesome!”

“Who are you, anyways…?” N’atural asked.

“Me? Used to be some schmuck named Terrance…” Terrance revealed.

He backed away, and N’atural turned herself to keep looking at him.

“Now, I’m Mayhem,” Mayhem answered. “The user of Fear and Loathing.”

N’atural perked her eyebrow. “And here I thought me getting the Metamorphosis was pretentious.”

“And kinda wrong, looking at you—” Mayhem added. “You still look… Well, pop-star girl.”

“…On the surface,” N’atural pondered aloud. “It’s like you said… My mind has expanded, accepted some things… After everything I did, regardless of anything, I am forever a monster. siVis is a literary practical jokester. It’s not me metamorphing into a monster physically. Meaning that I guess this new path of me was and is inevitable.”

“Metal as fuck,” Mayhem added.

N’atural smirked a bit and chuckled, again a bit disembodied but felt right. Good. “I’m guessing… We’re going to be partners in some fashion… M-mayhem?”

“Weeeell,” Mayhem swayed side to side. “Your plans for rampaging in society is kinda against mine whenever I start telling people to rebuild it from the ashes, soooo… ‘fraid not.”

“Oh thank goodness,” N’atural exhaled. “Because you’re a massive idiot.”

Mayhem grinned. “You’re gonna make for a great rival, though.”

N’atural returned a smile… To reveal her toothy maw starting to come in.

From the bowels of a broken city, further change was upcoming…

And it was a long time coming.