What is the difference between truth and what’s morally true?

Truth is often found coupled with other concepts, like justice or ideals. There are tons of situations where ‘truth’ can be ascribed, facts of reality, things that have happened in the past, or scientific principles, the former of which is what connects it to the justice system. The latter however, has nothing to do with the laws of society. The truth about human beings is that they are the some of their parts: Body + Mind + Soul = person

This is generally excepted as wrong, despite the fact that killing someone is no on a fundamental level no different than the cessation of a chemical reaction, like turning a kettle on, boiling water to steam. The mind isn’t exempt from this, it’s just electricity burning neurons, and Tayanita said that the soul is just another form of energy. On its own, a person is no different from air or a rock.

That brings me back to ideals and ‘that which is right’. On a conceptual level, you can understand why these ideas would spawn from the tribal communities of our ancestors, things like murder, cardinal sins, all go to serve a small community, thus serving the individuals in them. With more people alive, there are more hands to collect food and kill wild beasts and enemies. Selfish desires detract from civilization; laziness and greed.

Moral righteousness can easily be explained away with behavioural psychology, and there was a time I would have followed that line of thinking. You might not register any of this as being real, that’s ok, but after all the things I’ve encountered, is it too much to ask that there be something good out there? Something invisible, untouchable by drugs, the police, this societal framework that was never built to support millions of mammals, that forces them to live like ants in hive like structures. Is it so much to ask that there be a green hill beyond that grey horizon?

I’ve been told there are three archetypes, three parts of a person’s self; I wonder if that self is the ‘beyond’ I keep looking for. The thing that will save me.

I don’t have one of the archetypes, so I’ve been told, meaning my ‘self’ can’t be found simply by looking internally, it’s out in the world, in other people. My soul.

“What is it you’re looking for Feoli?”

We had gained quite a lot of ground from the point where we threw up, and we were nearly at our target destination. I was sceptical of her, still, I wanted to try and understand what she was saying earlier, about her own ideals, her truth. I’d gotten a taste of her justice already, so I thought I’d have an idea of what she’d say.

“Ireland.”

Something changed back there. After she finished her speech, I told her to get going. She fell back into her single word sentence structure.

I guess she wanted me to ask sooner; I was busy thinking about what she said, and what I was going to do when we got out of this ‘dream’, as she put it. By this point, we were half way through the month, I might have compared it to the situation with Lechoslaw, but something about there being a definitive end and no pressing threat, it gave me time to relax.

As the incomprehensible sky blared above, I reminded her, “You’ve already told me about that: you want to conquer and genocide Ireland, like my ancestors apparently did to yours.”

She didn’t respond. She just kept walking behind me.

I didn’t push any further for some time.

We spoke out at the same time, fumbling over each other. “I di-” she said. I said “We’re here.”

I thought about asking what she was going to say, but decided this was more important. I looked back and forth between her and the building.

It was a small enough building, the windows tinted, the door had the name of the bar on it, McHorrigan’s.

“You can start here.” She was about to walk in when I stopped her, “Ground rules. No matter what happens, you can’t use your powers or violence. This is a real pub, you’ll find all types of people in here, grouchy old men, middle-aged women on a girl’s night out, and even people my age, their usually dicks, because they’ve only started drinking recently. People will look at you weird at first, they’ll judge you based on your appearance. Tell them that story about it being from a performance, you having a rough day and not being bothered enough to get changed. They’ll buy it. The big problem you have is opening up to them, you’ll have to do more than you’re doing with me right now, if you want to figure people out.”

I thought about what she might have meant earlier, I gave a hopeful interpretation, “If you want to understand Ireland.”

“But-” She started stopping herself when a starring passer-by caught her eye. “But what does that mean? What do I have to do to make them respect me?”

I smiled a little, “That’s the cool part. They already do. They won’t think less of you until you say something weird, or speak strangely. I’ll admit, they’ll be slow to accept you, specifically, but they will. They’ll talk to you like they’ve known you their whole life, about every little thing that happens around town. That’s Ireland.”

She was a little more hesitant to go in. But she did.

I reminded her once more, “Don’t worry about this one going bad, we’ve got sixteen more tries at this.”

As the door swung open, I bounced out of there. I never strayed more than a mile as I surveyed Tralee for any criminals.

I can’t remember if it was that night or the next, but I did catch this guy dealing in his car. I recognised the kid buying, and guessed what was going on when he got in the car and got out five minutes later. The dealer tried to drive off, but after I lifted his rear wheels off the ground by an inch, he realised he wasn’t going anywhere.

Anyway, after maybe half an hour of patrolling, I came back to check on her. As I expected she was sitting on a bench not far from the pub.

I grinned wide, waiting for the outcome I was waiting for, “How’d you do?”

She was thinking about it, “Difficult.”

I waited for her to say something, she didn’t. I snapped.

“Well, obviously. Remember how I said you have to open up? That means not speaking like a cave man. I know you’ve got stuff going on in your head, you just have to talk! It’s not about getting your point across; it’s about getting your personality across. And you can’t do that the way you are.”

I leaned in, “It’s about showing your heart, not the facts.”

She was about to say something, I waited.

“Step back.”

I raised my lower lip and did as she asked. Again, she didn’t say anything else.

I rolled my eyes, she was right, this was going to be difficult.

“Next stop, let’s go.”

I took her to the cheapest hotel I could find; it might be what Americans would call it a motel, it was only two stories, and had maybe ten rooms, with a breakfast area.

I explained the situation to her, “You’re going to be living here. We’ll be doing most of your training here, starting with you renting a room with the money you got from that job.”

“What will you be doing?” I told her blatantly, “Don’t think about me, just tell the lady at the counter that you’re a performer looking for a place to spend the next two weeks, if she asks where your bags are, tell her I’m bringing them in from the car round the corner.”

She looked around as I dropped the money in her hands and pointed her to the door.

She got stuck trying to pull the door open, before pushing it in.

I think my worst weakness is my memory. I failed to remind myself that the Given worlds were an attack, and I consistently fail to recognise that these silly awkward people I keep laughing at are criminals.

Murderers.

I left to go get a suitcase, I’d prepared it earlier that day, giving Feoli fifteen minutes to get the room ready.

The door dinged as I put on a fake struggle, carrying the light suitcase. She was still at the desk, talking to the middle-aged woman.

“Oof! Feoli, what have you got in here! It’s only for the next week or two, right?” I looked over to her waiting for a response.

The hotel manager, Claire, was as tall as Feoli, but showed a far greater range of emotion. Most noticeably, happiness.

“So you must be her partner, aye? Lovely! I don’t suppose you can tell me where yer coming from, your mate here’s being very tight lipped about it. And for that matter I don’t suppose you’ll be willing to tell me if you have a preference for breakfast tomorrow, just so I know how much to cook.”

Feoli was standing a few feet away from the desk as I was coming in, shuffling closer to me. It was unnerving to say the least.

“ehm… Hashbrowns? Do you do hashbrowns? Eggs and bacon, all that and just for her. I’m staying with an old family friend while we’re in town.” I looked over to Feoli and smirked, she seemed confused more than anything.

“Yep, that’s great! Do you need any help with your bags super man?” She joked and I laughed, Feoli’s blank reaction made it clear that this was going to be more difficult than I thought.

“I’ll be seeing you tomorrow then! Breakfasts at nine!” She waved, Feoli managed to wave back.

We got to the room, and I let her wander around it and the bathroom attached, she’d be living here.

“It’s not going to be exactly like a normal life, but you can’t really get that in two weeks. Let’s see, you’ve got… maybe 700 euro after paying for the room and breakfast, I don’t know if that’ll be enough to live off of for two weeks, especially if you’re going to be eating fast food, which I’d advise against.”

I called to her while she was peeking into the bathroom, “Seriously, you can’t eat KFC every day, it’ll kill you.”

She called back, “What do I have to do now?” I fiddled with the tv and the smart phone Clover got me, I poked at the cracked screen for longer than I should have honestly. “Nothing.”

She trotted over to me in her chitin boots, I told her, “You should probably get those things off, there’s no way you can relax in those things.” She ignored me, “I am serious about doing this. Don’t let my failings trick you.”

I told it to her straight, “Thing about the Irish? We work so we can afford to drink, and then we drink so we can sleep knowing we have work in the morning. You don’t have work, so that means you’ll have to replace that with sitting on your ass watching tv. It’s what people who are on the dole do.”

I looked her up and down from my spot on the floor, “I actually did pick up some clothes for you, they’re my mum’s, so they’ll probably be a little baggy.”

“Do you live with your mother?” I snickered, “Yeah, I’m eighteen. I’ll be moving out in a year, maybe less.”

She asked a follow up question, “You live with your parents for that long?”

I scratched my chin, still tapping away at my phone, trying to get a streaming service to work, “On average, yeah. You live with your parents until you finish high-school. I guess I should ask, while we’re on the subject, how exactly does aging work for you Fomorians anyway? Like how long are you considered kids for. Cre-Umha was 300 or something, right? He seemed to speak act like an old man.”

She wandered over to her bed sitting on it.

“It varies. Those with a higher concentration of Fomorian magicks in their blood typically reach their prime in less than a decade, with the consequence that they will suffer physical deformations later in life. People like me, Creh-Umha, we reach adulthood around the same time as you’ve described. I think… opposed to the age groups being extended, there are simply more of them. Due to the flash in the pan lives of the majority of Fomorians, someone who ages to one-hundred is elderly, past that you’ll get periods like the ‘superiority crisis’, and the ‘archaic years’.”

“Got it, Got it!” I finally got the screen share to work, looking back over to Feoli.

Confused I asked, “Why haven’t you taken your armour off yet? Really, it’s alright for you to wear my mum’s clothes, she won’t even notice they’re gone…”

Hell, she won’t even notice I’m gone.

She was hesitant, I pointed at the bathroom, “You can do it in there?” It was more of a question; I was trying to figure out what her problem was.

I thought she was afraid of me, until she said, “You aren’t their king.”

“Nobody is going to try and kill you. At least not right now. Now’s the time for you to do whatever weird crap you want to do. A dream, remember?” I scratched at my nose as I flicked through the movies.

She picked up the clothes and left.

While I was wondering what movies would be best to show her, what’d help break her in, I heard the lashing of water in the other room.

She came out dripping wet, I caught her just before she made it back to the foot of the bed, “You’re going to ruin the damn carpet! Mold starts to grow in it!”

I pushed her back into the bathroom, over the puddles on the floor. “What the-”

I looked around the room, not seeing her armour anywhere. A cog turned in my mind.

“Don’t tell me you’ve been wearing monsters this whole time.” She didn’t answer. After I got a towel for the carpet, and a towel for her, I closed the door back on her and got to drying as much as I could.

Stifled by the wall I heard her ask, “What am I supposed to be doing?” I got back up for the third time, opening the door to find her standing in the same position.

I splatted my towel on the ground, “Stand on that, and mop the water off your body with the one in your hands.” Looking at her now, I realised that not only did the clothes not match their wearer, she’d gotten those soaked too.

I rolled my eyes, “Take those off, surface dwellers try to minimise their wetness.” She countered, “Then why are there so many people at the beach? Why is there a room dedicated to water transport?” She motioned to the toilet.

I just decided on the movie we’ll be watching first.

“Listen, humans need water to live, they drink it, use it to maintain personal hygiene, and we use it to transport poop and pee for disposal. But besides being able to drown in it, it can also cause infections and lead to poisonous mold to grow.”

There was a twinge of seriousness in her face, “Really?”

“Uh, yeah, if you don’t mop it up.”

She still had that knee length tattered green skirt, and the same fabric covered her upper-torso. “I’ll try and get you some different clothes tomorrow.”

“Will any of this actually be enough?” She asked, “You’ve been dancing around the fact that I’m an unnatural colour, covering my skin with excuses such as it being for a performance.”

I reassured her, “It’s the type of thing that people’ll ignore after they get to know you, after you’ve hung around town for a while. I’m getting fewer and fewer stares every day.”

That was a problem in the long run, one that I’m still no closer to solving.

“I didn’t even know that water can grow poisons. How am I going to be able to in- how am I going to learn your ways without basic knowledge on the surface?”

I smiled as wide as I could, “This is a special case. I’ll use a secret technique.”

She lowered her eye brows.

She sat up straight at the foot of the bed, I was laying on my side, resting my head on my fist.

…

“I thought he was the ‘God of thunder’. How does electricity defeat him?”

“Well, yeah, but Odin took away his powers, sealing them into his hammer.”

“And this is fictitious? These people are actors?”

“Yeah.”

“There world, Asgard, is not real?”

“Probably not real.”

“Then why are we watching this? If this doesn’t teach me about real people, then wha-”

I shushed her, “This bit’s good, one of the guys who made the original stories makes a cameo. Listen, this isn’t real, but it was written by people from the surface, you’ll see their sensibilities and thoughts through understanding deeper meanings of the film. It’s the story of a wealthy man living wearing the shoes of a pauper, it’s a classic structure that can be found in every culture through human history. To understand that at the core we’re all the same.”

The real reason I put this movie on was because it was a ‘fish out of water’ story, and because a new one is coming out.

Feoli asked, “Who is the man talking about ‘big strong arms’? Is he one of the thunder god’s allies?”

I motioned out to the tv, “No, no, that’s just a song they put over this scene to make it feel more like an American barbeque, that’s a meal you have in the summer where you invite your friends and neighbours around. It’s used here to make the scene a little less… empty. Look.”

I rewinded the scene, muting the tv, and dubbed over the people murmuring, the sausages cooking, and the cars with my own sound effects.

“It would be emotionless without it, and that would subtract from the small town, middle of no-where atmosphere.” I explained.

Feoli listened silently.

We kept watching for a little longer before Feoli asked, “What does he do?”

“Uh?” I replied.

“He’s naturally blue. How does he hide his appearance.” She was talking about the thunder god’s brother.

I looked back at the screen, “Odin uses his magic, I think. Oh, actually, I guess this scene implies that he subconsciously uses his own magic to transform himself.” I sat up and yawned, despite it not being too late into the night.

“The All-father’s magic has many uses.” She said it in a way that told you there was more on her mind.

“Freeze it.” She commanded, and I did.

She got up to go to the bathroom. I blurted out after she disappeared around the door, “The bowl thing on the ground is for poop and pee! The tall thing with the… dangly bit is a shower, that’s the thing you use to bathe.”

It would bad news if she got the two confused.

I rolled onto my feet, and paced around the room, checking my phone. Most major social medias were down, and I noticed some features on the streaming service were inaccessible, like the ratings. It’s gotten me thinking what this phenomenon is like from the other side. It seems to exclude the points of importance and those deemed relevant enough from the rest of reality. But when I think about it that way, it doesn’t make much sense at all.

Inch beach is gone. The only thing I’ve done there is fight Feoli, and neither of us were accepted into the event. It’s got me wondering if there is something else that’s imperceptible, some kind of residue from super natural events. Or maybe there’s something else going on there. Maybe there are more thing’s going on in Ireland that I don’t know about.

There was already the Pooka, nobody knew about that. There could be something lingering around that area, anywhere. Maybe there’s things still sleeping just below the surface, waiting for somebody to take the wrong road home one night.

It would be quite the coincidence if a monster just so happened to be under the place we fight.I was lost in thought thinking on whether or not Feoli could be hiding something from me, so I didn’t even here the bathroom door open up.

She coughed, and I looked over.

I jammed my phone into my pocket and got into a fighting position. Trying to avert my eyes, I rolled them into the back of my skull, but it was too late. I had already seen them.

Not wanting to cause another scene in a hotel, I asked the nude woman in a hushed tone, “Who the hell are you?”

“It’s me.” Came a familiar voice.

“What the hell did you do!” I almost shouted, a little more than concerned that she was not only naked, but white.

Her skin was as pale, like mine, but with none of the blemishes I hid with my mask.

I was reluctant to observe her further, given the former.

“I made a second skin. The principle is the same as with my armour, though this is unnoticeably thin. I took one piece of advice you gave me and disregarded the other. I paid attention to the play being performed, and I came to the conclusion that… that being blue would further hamper my ability to blend in with people. The people here.”

I peeked for a second, “But why are you naked!” I said, covering my face.

“I need to know if this looks right. That tiny mirror wasn’t good enough.”

I sighed telling myself they technically weren’t really naked boobs, it was just another life form she’d created…

“I haven’t seen… one of those before.” I gulped, trying to hide my embarrassment.

I inspected her head, like the other biological constructs, she failed to make natural looking hair. “You, uh, aren’t really good at hair.”

She tilted her head, “Should I go without it?” I shook my head, “No, well, yeah, that’s uncanny, we can get you a wig, but you need to keep your eyebrows and eyelashes.

I leaned in and studied her face, inspecting it for signs of the ocean dweller. I bit my lip, trying to think if I should tell her the connotations of pretending to be a race you aren’t. As weird as it was for her to wear a living suit, she was probably right, this would make working under the short timespan a little easier.

Usually, the thin fabric of my mask eyes doesn’t make much of a difference, but in discerning tiny details like a slight variation in colour or marking, it’s a hard chore.

I was nearly touching her. Was I imagining a small tinge of blue around her eyelids and lips? Was the skin-creature thinner there?

She backed up, her ‘face’ a little more difficult to read, a triumph if you consider how good she was at that already. “I think I did fine with the front. I need you to look at the back.”

I argued, but complied, “We’ll have to work on your expressions, that second layer’s going to hamper your ability to do stuff like smile.”

I circled around her, I’m a little ashamed to say I was starting to sweat, after again realising she was- you know.

I noticed a blue-ish patch around her back. I poked at it, “You missed around here.”

She made a scary noise.

I turned red, “WHAT the hell was that? I thought you said it wasn’t real!”

She turned gritting her teeth, grabbing her shoulders, “It’s real skin. Of course it has nerves, it’s real, you stupid bastard. Do not touch me.”

I slammed my fists into my eyes and cradled my head back, apologising profusely.

She waited before heading back into the bathroom, this time I heard the shower going, she spoke clearly over the top of the running water, “You know if I were an enemy, you would be dead. Don’t trick yourself into thinking we’re alone now. Just like we’ve been… over looked, the same could have happened to outside forces. It’s not entirely unheard of that organisations might make moves on presumably unoccupied territories.”

I answered her question, I still shielded my eyes regardless of the thin wall between us.

“Well, I guess you’re right. Sorry, I shouldn’t be worrying about an intruder being naked, just that there’s an intruder. I guess for a second, I forgot about our situation. I have a tendency to fall into mundanity.”

She didn’t reply, not until the water was switched back off, “What do you mean by ‘mundanity’.”

I answered slowly, “You know, like… The normal response to seeing a naked stranger is to stop looking right? I guess in this setting of us just watching movies, ordering breakfast, I sort of forgot I was wearing this mask.” She came out soon after, wearing that ratty green fabric.

“Why do you wear those clothes? Is there some significance to it? The cape and the esca.” she pointed to the stem like tassel shooting up from my head. “…and the mask.”

She finished by asking me, “Are you a criminal? Is that why you hide your face?”

I shook my head, though I probably have broken a few laws, “It’s just a costume. At first, I wore this mask to hide my identity. But I think overtime, it’s become an altogether different…” I stopped myself.

“Let’s get back to the movie. We’ll pick up a wig in the morning, maybe get another pair of clothes together.” I flopped back down on the floor.

She sat down on the bed. “What about the poisonous fumes?”

I chuckled, “I think it’ll take a lot of time and moisture before we have to worry about that. Besides, the owner seems to be taking good enough care of the place.”

“There’s plenty of room. Up here.” I looked up at her on the bed with one eye, thinking to myself, it’s just a singles bed, there’s hardly any room for two up there. But then I realised that she was taking up as little space as possible.

“Aight. If it’s fine with you.” I kicked off my shoes, and climbed onto the bed, sitting cross legged behind her.

She turned around, catching me while I was picking my nose, “Right, let’s go then.” I unpaused the movie, and she turned back around not long after.

.

.

.

Over two weeks have passed, and what’s changed? Well, the world hasn’t ended, unless you count that apocalyptic sky. There haven’t been any fights. I spent around a quarter of my time with Feoli, another quarter working out, and half my time roaming around Kerry, taking a few trips to Inch beach, or rather where inch beach should be.

I made up a story to the nice woman at the desk who owned the hotel, telling her that there’d been some trouble while transporting Feoli’s things from Limerick. Technically, I didn’t even ask for the clothes, she offered them up. They were just some old things she had lying around.

Next, I took Feoli to a costume shop to pick out a wig. Again, I made up a story that Feoli had to shave her head after contracting lice. At first Feoli picked out an afro looking wig, and I had to explain to her why it would be a bad idea to get something that goes with a killer clown costume.

It just about reminded me, this woman…

We eventually settled on a wig that came with a pirate costume, it was a shoulder length, straight, full bang cut; it was dark black with a shine. It suited her cold eyes, but gave a different feeling then her usual outfit.

Her cold eyes being coupled with that dirty hair and open brow, gave off an ‘I’ll kick your ass impression.’ This wig, coupled with the more sophisticated clothes of an older working woman, made her seem more like a socialite more than anything.

One day we were watching a movie, I think it was *Austin Powers, “*The owner of the hotel has invited me out for drinks.”

“Ah…” I said, “You’ll have to go to that, she’s been really nice to you, lending you clothes, not to mention, you’ve been helping out around the place, so she probably feels inclined to ask. Of course, you shouldn’t except her invitation out of courtesy, or because you feel-”

She cut me off, “Enough with the exposition. I’m not a fecken’ idiot, I’m going because I want to.”

I had to hold back a smile, I took my eyes off the movie, looking over from the little folding chair we’d brought into the room. She was lying on her stomach, facing the screen, head resting between her arms. She’d adopted local vocabulary; if it were just that, I might think she was just putting it on to fit in, but she’d also changed her mannerisms. Perhaps it was because she was becoming more comfortable above water.

At first, I was… worried. It felt like she was cutting herself off from her culture, like she was repressing it to fit in. But then I remembered something I’d once told myself, that I wanted to live two lives. She always will be a fomorian, but she’s made something close to a life here, a second world.

It’s what I wanted for myself, so I really shouldn’t be getting so uneasy just because it was this woman… This…

“I was going to invite you, you ‘yawebish’.”

“No, you shouldn’t be cursing so often, keep it to once every five sentences or more, read the room to decide. And it’s pronounced ‘wee bitch’, don’t let the regional dialect fool you, if you go too native, most people won’t be able to understand you.”

She glossed over what I told her, “I asked if you were going to come with me.”

I answered bluntly, “No.”

She smiled unnaturally wide, it was too obvious she was forcing it, “You aren’t following your own advice, ‘Instead of saying no, you should try and give some reasons’.

“Little less teeth,” I pointed, waiting a second before continuing, “I can’t go out because… It would make you look weird, bringing a guy in a costume.”

Her smile did fade returning to the more reliable cold glare, “You could take it off.”

I didn’t say anything. I was figuring it out in my head.

“If I take it off, then I’m not me anymore. I’ll stop being the person you know.” I noticed her look over in my periphery, long after I’d stopped speaking.

I think she was waiting for a better reason.

I thought of a comparison, “If… if the villain in this movie, if he took off all those prosthetics and the make-up, then he’d be someone else.”

I went home, got changed, and showed up to the pub dressed normally, with a cap on.

I never interacted with her, never even faced her. I went simply because I was curious how she was doing, so I listened in on her and the table she was sitting at. It was a busy night, there were some guys playing some music, it’s what some people would call a ‘fiddle-dee-dee’, where people show up with instruments and play something with other people there.

I tried to tune it out, along with the drunk old man beside me at the bar.

She wasn’t really talking to them much, they were the ones asking questions, she was focused on listening to local stories.

Good, I thought, she’s making friends.

Then the bar started singing an old Irish song called, ‘Seven drunken nights’. At that point I didn’t know whether or not Feoli was joining in with them, she’d have to know the words, I thought to myself.

Everybody was singing the ‘You drunk, you’re drunk’ part of the song, but they’d slow down, taking turns to let a single person sing the drunk man’s verses.

I joined in a little, smiling to myself as I sipped the glass I’d bought.

It was the ‘fifth night’ she sung:

“Oh, And as I went home on Friday night as drunk as drunk could be,

I saw a head upon the bed where my old head should be.

Well, I called me wife and I said to her: Will you kindly tell to me,

Who owns that head upon the bed, where my old head should be.”

I coughed when I heard her voice. It was deeper than most girls, I guess that’s why she was fine singing a man’s part. Even so, I’d say she was good, disarmingly so. As her voice carrying a slight melancholy went quiet, the rest of the pub cried loudly,

“WELL, YOU’RE DRUNK, YOU’RE DRUNK, YOU SILLY OL’ FOOL, THAT’S A BABY BOY THAT ME MOTHER SENT TO ME! WELL, IT’S MANY A DAY I’VE TRAVELLED A HUNDRED MILES OR MORE, BUT A BABY BOY WITH WHISKERS ON, SURE I NEVER SAW BEFORE!”

They eventually finished the song and I was content. I got off the stool, walked to the door, and just before I left, I looked back.

There the hotel manager was hugging a woman with what looked like blue eyeshadow and lips, smiling too wide.

As I was leaving, I thought about the sky.

Looking up to it, it still seemed like it was flaring, exactly the same as during the day, though the world was still dark, as it should be at 10PM at night. My mind told me to ignore this fact. It’s not the only thing I’ve been ignoring.

There are a number of things I’ve avoided, but there is one I’ve come to grips with. She’s a murderer. That woman in there, she took the lives of at least ten people. It was never my call to excuse that. Yet here we are. It was so quick. After she made a little speech, I instantly jumped to this- this redemption arc, whatever it is.

I wonder if I’d be open to the same with the Gator, probably not.

I cowered at the idea, but I’ve already done tried this with one girl… Am I so desperate, that I’ll push aside my morals to get just a little closer to those worlds? That dream.?

I wiped at my eyes.

‘Nothing really matters’.

That’s what I’ve been thinking all this time, that’s the sort of person I’ve been all these years.

I’ve been completely divorced from the actions of other people, its how I’ve been nurtured, the sort of world I’m living in.

Take Mullet for example, the way he sleazes around women, that’s not right, is it? But it’s got nothing to do with me. If anything, he’s a better person then me, look at how many people he talks to, he has the confidence to do what he wants, I don’t.

He has the confidence to be himself around other people, and somehow people still like him for it. Can’t I just do the same? Sam’s not that bad, is he? The only person stopping me from hanging out with people is me. I’m the one putting on a mask.

It’s their life, and then there’s mine. I’m cut off. There’s an invisible barrier between us.

That world has nothing to do with me.

The mindset’s been stuck with me, that no matter who they are, I should just be happy that they’re talking to me.

No matter what they’ve done, I’ll love them.

I only care about myself. What I do. How I see myself. If that’s not selfish…

I honestly can't help feeling like i'm the worst.

Still, I’ve been thinking, am I really going to be able to keep this going much longer?

I’ve been meeting tons of new people over the last few months, and I’ll meet more, I’m sure.

I’ve decided I'm going to try and be honest with mysel-

The sky’s normal.

Shit, sorry, it flicked back while writing this, thought there’d be more time, need to go.

I have to see if Clo is alive.