Part of the Blackwater Files, a collaborative writing project started by The Chronicler Each story follows various characters participating in an experimental project by the enigmatic Elysium, a company searching for immortality.
In this narrative, follow personal security, Ricki, engaged by Elysium to protect the Blackwater Project from the inside.
Ricki - Part 1
Otto - Part 2
Carmen - Part 3
Mazu
Your eyes won't close long enough to blink Carmen away. She shouldn't be here. And you don't need the distraction.
"Just go," you growl beside her ear, "Away from the veil," Sifting your claws through the slipstream shadow beside you. Its already siphoned off some power. And now, pangs of emotional grit scratch your gums. There's blood in your teeth.
The music drops with a splash of cymbals, like a goblin crashing back into the lake. And Carmen decoupled, coils away. blowing a vortex of smoke rings, a DiMassi cigarette pinched between her thumb and index finger. "You're a dream come true, Ricki." she says, fading away, sputtering to aerosol.
She was right of course. Come true in someone else's dream.
You swing your grappling hook to the box seat rail at stage right and pull yourself away from the gloomy pall. Three swings and you've ascended to the balconette. You check your Raygun before dashing behind the velvet partition. F is for Felicity because words are all we have, L is for Elgar, an unsolved cypher, O is the sounding of the Oliphant—the hunt is on, double V are the fangs of a Sawtooth Wave, D is the Danse Macabre, 4 are the Horsemen, and 8 for Tentacles, all the better to hold you with my dear.
In the hallway you stop and hear the faint but present groan, behind and below. Something wanting more of you now that it's had a taste. Press on Ricki. There's a mission to fulfill, a dreamer to kill. The shroud of the black water is only evil staring back at you, awakened by fresh souls and lab trolls. Dial in the hypnogogic drift and take control.
"Your submersible awaits," says a red rabbit, from a verdant glade at the end of the corridor. They point with their foreleg to a vaulted door. The creature lowers their head and avoids eye contact. A good thing since you're tweaking with unruly hormones and chaotic urges.
Pulling the door open, you step through into a glass ready room. An ornate airlock in the form of a watchful eye gleams, brassy reflections in the cool chamber. And on the other side of the transparent wall is Mazu, hovering in the drink. Dropping her fins to the sides of the fluted ballast, she exhales methane globules from a grin of a grill on the bow.
"What's on your mind?" she asks you. Her voice resonating in your skull telepathically, "Wait, don't answer. I want to show you something first."
Mazu opens the onboarding aperture and you slink into the captain's chair. Happy to get out of the airlock—it smells like Krill Bits™. You run your hands along the arm rests and finger thumb through the controls. They seem familiar but don't make any sense. Dagger Flex, Nose Bone, Chip Wave, Ghost Flint, Organ Mash, and Foam Dose. "Channel scrubbers, in case we run into too much interference," she says in an overly comforting tone. Like you've got something to worry about. The viewport wraps around from port to starboard. Flecks of plant matter and loose fish scales dance in the floodlights. Mazu tilts and swerves away from the undersea dock, like a shark in search of her prey.
Take a moment to recalibrate. Close eyes, fold hands, breathe slow. More motherless memories, they come so easy, haunting and affecting. The forest floor, beneath your sandals, needles and chutes, moss on the roots. Father carries the axe and follows your steps, rumbling a roadkill lullaby:
Little Bunny, where'd you come from Where you off to play?
You won't make it back to the warren today
You're quick like a rabbit but you're not quick enough
And now you've been flattened by the wheels on my truck
Little Bunny, I hit you, I thought you were a rock
But now you look like a Jackson Pollock
I'll save you from the Owl and Wolverine
And I now pronounce you, dead at the scene
Cause roadkill's been good to me
It serves me for a highway meal
Roadkill's been good to me
I'll eat you in honor, butchered and clean
Little Bunny, you'll sizzle, in a pool of margarine
I'll eat you with Rosehip, Wild Onions and Greens
I'll wrap you all up in aluminum foil
And drive fifty miles till your belly is boiled
Little Bunny, I thank you as I eat your last piece
And scattered around me your bones and your teeth
I sit by the asphalt, licking the grease
You're my guest of honor at this roadside feast
You join the chorus and swing your stick like a metronomic machete, deadheading the spent blooms and reseeding the wild with joyous aplomb. Father snaps twigs along the way. "Warmer, we're getting warmer Ricki." He sniffs into the understory.
"C O L," you pronounce the letters with deliberate articulation. But you form it like a question.
"Yes love, Circle Of Life, a beautiful thing. From death and decay come chaos and creation."
"Like me?" you ask, just wanting to hear him answer.
"Just like you bud—just like you." he says, and kicks you playfully in the butt.
Mazu glides through the deep. Her head lamp beams oscillating through the tenebrous waters. She cradles you in the cockpit and releases more gas. You check your timestamp and wonder why you haven't noticed. You've been wet-worlding for 113 hours. They were supposed to pull you a long time ago.
"Here we are. This thing, what do you make of it?" she asks half rhetorically.
You drift closer toward a towering black orchid bloom. The petals slip in and out of shadow, a mesmerizing undulation. Its lips part to release a swarm of miniature jellyfish and for a moment you can see through to another world. A topside realm where you glimpse your body in blank repose. A white room with pale figures lurking over you like harvesters, adjusting lines and pricking your mind with corrupted frequencies.
“Sensors indicate some kind of fissure, a break between here and there. I’d recommend we weld it shut or obliterate the whole thing,” says Mazu, “sad really, its so beautiful.”
“No. We’re going in,” you tell her, “to get out.”
The vulvic portal closes and you wait for the next pulse and count—
Five. "Aye Captain," Mazu unfurls a formidable array of weapons across the hull. Four. A quick inventory on your belt - concussion grenades, shiv, stitch kit, grappler, shriekbox, triptabs, biowatch, and Raygun, Three. You force recall, a father and daughter, "Be brave, end it quickly, love." Two. Cut the lights. One. Rise and shine Ricki, it's time to wake up.
Check out the first three parts here:
Ricki - Part 1
LITTLE BUNNY!!
I did not expect that little song! Very noice!
The song was unexpected. nice touch!