THE WORLD that Hates You

[ThreadLurkingComorant]

[image description: Our perspective character's hand holding a old damaged photo, a stylized depiction of his family. In the background, a large abstracted beast terrorizes the sky with a large menacing eye.]

You think back to the world you came from, the very thing you fight for but can never return to. 

Growing up you were always a bit of a weird kid, which is to say you found yourself getting into fights and lots of kids tended to avoid you in the long run. 

You were very into reading, you were what the folks would call "gifted", a high school reading level by the 4th grade. You'd be showered in books plenty which.. 

By all means was more than welcomed frankly. You stacked yellowing tomes from the local library quite regularly, keeping a dedicated bag for the purpose of keeping them safe walking them home and back. The staff tended to like you a good bit, always said you were a good kid and that you were getting a heads up on college. 


Not that it matters these days, nobody has felt like going to college in a long time now...


You were rather fond of messy stories, P* C* A* in particularly was one that felt defining for you in a lot of ways. The horror, the romance, the consequences of a witch and a doctor's worlds intertwining in ways god never intended.

Many parents hated you for your tastes. Told their kids to avoid you, called you a pervert and a degenerate behind your back constantly. You hoped many of your friends knew you well enough to not listen at the time but..

Well, they're not your friends now. Ultimately it isn't like they'd last past high school anyway, very rare to keep people around into adult life. 

Still, you ended up with a deep fascination for the occult. The concept of a witch was... well, taboo in your region despite being widespread in most parts. Path to hell? Maybe, but there was something beautiful to you about the way they operated. Like dragons becoming dinosaurs the further we dug into the earth, the witch takes the most odd and unrecognizable parts of the world and makes it something you could understand. Men with longer shadows that could twist reality? Just a extension of themselves, something psychokinetic that could be learned with a little tin radio. The endless darkness that rooted in the core of the earth? Unborn gods who's potential may never be fully tapped. 


Of course despite your hubris, your parents never really seemed to mind so long as you were happy. Your mother was a hard worker, maybe a little too much so god bless her. In a lot of ways she was your best friend. She'd get you going in the morning, bail you out in the afternoon when you regularly got in trouble, actively defended you whenever the neighborhood and school district all decided to take issue with you. 

She came from a harder upbringing, she doesn't like to detail it much but it's more than apparent that deep down she'll o anything to make sure you live a better life than she did. It makes you wonder what makes some parents willing to go so far and others so regretful and spiteful toward their children ever existing.  Everytime you see her, she's a walking reminder that you will never fully understand or be able to replay the people who love you most in the world. 



Dad was a bit more complicated. He was less around, often came home from work without more than a couple of words to you. He could be incredibly tough on you, never really understood why you didn't care for sports or firing at the local lifestock like "a boy your age should." You wondered why he never owned more than 3 pairs of pants at a time, man practically lived in Denim. He often pushed you to pursue things that would toughen you up much to your dismay, and your mother would fight with him every time it inevitably didn't work out. Still, you have many fond memories of him taking you out for a nice bowl of tantanmen. He knew a good spot, claimed he used to work there long ago. You ask him why he never cooked for anyone if he used to work at a restaurant. He confidentially dismissed it as if it were a secret waiting for you to be the right age to truly understand.

Mom says it's because he was a the dishwasher. 

One day he decided to run a errand in the evening, said he'd be back quick. Began to worry around midnight, mom assured me he'd be fine and sent me off to bed before immediately scrambling to make calls. 

We had to identity him two days later. 

Miss him every day. 


The world only became worse with time, those who aren't buried or burned quick enough began to walk the earth. 

Stories of people coming home to their own spouses slitting their throats. 

Tales of children luring each other into lakes to drown each other. 

Unknown creatures roaming the skies, removing chunks of the world and leaving not even a memory to go off of.

Trust became broken, nightfall became a death sentence. Schools shut own, bus drivers armed to the teeth, even uphill where folks had money there were local spots caging up doors. U

There ended up a large demand for those who could bury the dead.  As a freak kid you found yourself running a lot of off gigs. They became demanding, more than keeping a baseball bat and a can of mace can handle. You're small, you can only do so much. 

Carrying around a gun was out of the question unless you wanted cops to pull you aside constantly. 


A sword? You couldn't get approved for one of those. Decapitation for these things was a way to remove the demon from the corpse but... that required training you couldn't afford. 


Needless to say the cocktail of events along with our current apocalypse wasn't exactly the best for a nerdy kid's brain with fantasies of magic and revolution on the mind. 


The world was ending, your mom's paycheck wasn't holding up on its own.

 You needed to find the funds to live to see what came next. If you could kill these things, you could


The natural conclusion? Commit a crime against god and make a bargain with a voice from beyond. There was a rumor you could summon a stranger from beyond your plane and make a deal if you needed something quick.  

Some of you know the drill by now, seen this a few times through a few other sets of eyes.

In the past they said people built all sorts of devices to make contact but....

Today it's all there at home.


[image description: A instant messanger screen with the the starting lines of the conversation presented below.]

Connected
Logged in as: Fission_Mors
AbsoluteDante: A client? 
Fission_Mors: yeah... looking for a proxy job. 
Fission_Mors: You give those out?
AbsoluteDante: Depends. I don't personally like operating without a screening. 
AbsoluteDante: And I have certain client profiles I don't like to operate with. 
Fission_Mors: im working.
Fission_Mors: the world is ending
Fission_Mors: the government hate us
Fission_Mor: the animals are leaving-
AbsoluteDante: Stop with the stupid bit.. I'm going to tell you what. 
AbsoluteDante: You're underage and a ferryman, you are genuinely the worst combination of things to give a proxy. Most of us flat out blacklist people like you for even attempting with such a disaster combination of characteristics. Children, especially teenagers, are the last people you give the means to become maidens of the apocalypse. 
AbsoluteDante: I can't believe how much someone had to fuck it up for everyone to agree it was a bad idea... even he refuses to repeat it..
Fission_Mors: You can tell all that?
AbsoluteDante: I can see everything in your soul. Unfortunately your potential is strong and your heart is in the right place so I'm giving you a chance to present yourself with sincerity and poise. Tell me why I should give you anything? What makes you someone I should break my own rules for?
 

---

This is not a interactive project, The beginning of the end is locked in place. 

However... persuading the entity on the other end of the conversation will determine the form your other self will take. 

Pick your words carefully, they will stick with you to the end.