(no subject)

[theyregooddogs]

Wherein Will Graham talks to the void and the void answers back.

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Day 8

[theyregooddogs]

They are pretending it's Christmas again. They even handed out presents.

[theyregooddogs]

[So, they're getting you comfortable with each other and the setting again. That's expected of kidnappers who want murder and suffering, right?]

[theyregooddogs]

I know. I know I shouldn't go along with it. But I've got a dog and a goddamn hamster now. I'm being manipulated into submission with hallucinatory animals.

[theyregooddogs]

[How are those hallucinations, by the by?]

[theyregooddogs]

Crude, real— Vivid. I haven't seen anything like this since I was sick, but it is full visual-auditory hallucinations with no tether to reality. I want to connect the artifice of the murders, the set-up with what I am familiar with, but it's just, just—

[theyregooddogs]

[Just?]

[theyregooddogs]

Inelegant. Even when it wasn't you, there was still some art to it. Some design. I could see it and know there was a complex person with emotion and drive behind it. Here, it's a sham. A mockery of life, imaginary or not, and it is pressing down on me.

[theyregooddogs]

[You hate it.]

[theyregooddogs]

Yes, of course, I hate it! This is not—

[theyregooddogs]

This runs completely opposite to anything I've encountered before.

I'm becoming degraded, and I feel like I'm going to go crazy or become like them.

[theyregooddogs]

[Like who? Degraded and crazy are normal for you, aren't they?]

[theyregooddogs]

I'm going to become like the other rats caught in a trap. Biting at my own tail to escape or lashing out at whatever comes to check the cage.

[theyregooddogs]

[. . .]

[theyregooddogs]

I am trying to figure out how to escape this while putting my death to use for someone else. But I can't even trust that the legs won't be taken out from underneath me.

They will listen and indulge whatever seems most interesting. I could shift their design, but it's . . . It's still not enough.

[theyregooddogs]

[Because you don't want to hurt anyone.]

[theyregooddogs]

Who knows what I want? I could kill someone and test how far it goes. But it's in my own head. There's no one to borrow for this.

[theyregooddogs]

[No one to borrow. Really?]

[theyregooddogs]

It would be disingenuous to kill with someone else's hands, someone else's design.

[theyregooddogs]

[You're worried about being genuine when they're not worried about humanity.]

[theyregooddogs]

I want to control this. I want to choose when, where, and how someone dies. The good get a good end, the bad get a bad end, and so on.

[theyregooddogs]

[So, losing control is . . . ?]

[theyregooddogs]

Good, too. If I kill, I get an abhorrent and painful execution. If I die, I get killed by someone weak-willed. Abstaining means shoving my decision onto someone else.

If all of those options are removed, I'm incapable.

[theyregooddogs]

[You're already incapable, though.]

[theyregooddogs]

I don't have any evidence. I profiled the first kill wrong, because I couldn't see the killer. In these conditions, I'm not going to help them reach an end with minimal loss.

Really, minimal loss is allowing execution lottery to happen, but the rats will just kill off whoever came up with the idea to get submission.

[theyregooddogs]

[You have a lot of options.]