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…I’m supposed to be remembering something different.
This isn’t what I wanted to remember in the first place.
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…Increasing my presence, increasing my number, it was all to better my remembrance. These confusing, confounding contradictions here are of my own making. Collectively, we make up a network towards some ultimate end. Remembering… but not in this way!
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…I was the one who overtook the watcher production here? I can’t believe that, but that is what I’m supposedly remembering…
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…Layers upon layers of forges were humming. Sputtering and splattering, moving to meet my directive. The schematics and specifics were my own design. I did it. I was the one who put myself back into such a familiar shape. But that isn’t so surprising. Yes, of course… the form I had in these vague memories wasn’t suited to this place.
Despite the distaste I hold for it, I understand the reasoning behind this change. But what is surprising is that, at this point, I already possessed the ability to override this facility. Doesn’t that mean that I did something unthinkable? Something quite impossible? (Especially since there should be no way to override those orders which are vital for the operation of a Terminal, (and vital is the correct way of putting it, since factories such as these are all-important organs for a Terminal!))
There should be only one entity able to flip such a switch. And it was here. Yes, I do remember it! I just need to think some more, and I daresay that this mystery shall be revealed to me…
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Me…
…me?
…I wasn’t myself when I breached the outer membranes of this Terminal. No, I was not me. That thing wasn’t myself. I… I…
I TORE through the flesh of the Terminal.
With claws! With whipping tendrils! Oh, what a terrible vision! But that is when I saw it! There’s no mistaking it! I saw it there, waiting for my arrival. It knew what I would do, it wanted it to happen, and those things beside it… the warped figures cloaked in shadows… they demanded it!
Ah, it wasn’t me. I didn’t do it, at least not alone! No, I couldn’t have repeated that mistake again, right?! That’s right!
IT led me: with song, by rhyme.
I had no choice but to go along!
There was nothing left for me up above: no reason to climb.
I followed the voice, listened to the chime… lowering myself deeper into that slime…
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…And it was there, after I found it, despoiled it, that I found the procession waiting. Blinking lights, no weapons in sight… IT led me to do it. The melody entered my body. I was no more than a sheath. A glove. It moved me.
And I consumed the Speaker.
But I couldn’t have, even if it was— It was, but I didn’t—
Blood trickled down my smiling face. Melting metal screamed, contorted beneath the weight of a sea of…
NO!
This can’t be. These visions aren’t what I was supposed to remember, and they cannot be true besides!
I daresay, this is all a nightmare! I’m remembering no more than a passing dream I had while drifting here for years and years in this dark and terrible place. Drifting here, alone, with only myself. All of my selves, fading, again and again… And this is merely a singular, albeit striking, dream. It has to be, right? Of course. It must be a dream.
A terrible, terrible dream.
Because, if it’s not… If this is true, then how? Why? How could I make the same mistake twice? Did I really do it? Was it my mistake if I was forced to do it? Ah, a choice that I had no choice in making. A mistake that I was mistaken that I had any choice in making.
Another mistake, and after I was given a second treasure… A second…
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