I was planning on waiting a few days for my next post. I already have about four drafts saved, to update you guys on that voodoo female's arrival and other visitors tromping around the grounds of Sanctuary, but I wanted to hold off. Someone I care about very much got nasty with me for posting too often, told me that I was posting "to get attention..." that one stung a bit. But.. certain events have disallowed my waiting.
For those that aren't aware, in the supernatural community, certain people are bestowed Titles to indicate what they do in the world. Proxies are the meat puppets of the Fears, Runners try to avoid death, Survivors are those that remain, Gatherers manipulate and gather information to feed to the Fears, so on and so forth.
I've already mentioned that I started Running as a child, the day I left my childhood home because my family believed the word of my rapist over mine. I started seeing the Wretched Man's shadows that day, though didn't understand what they were. I was too deeply in shock as a kid to mind that the shadows moved.
I became a Gatherer when I was in my late teens, which is basically the Fears' version of a mole. I went through extensive training on psychology, verbal and written communication skills, sociological problems in society, even typing and computer classes to ensure that I would know what I was doing online.
I met some exceedingly fucked up people, made contacts, and began to masquerade as the Runner I once was. It was easy, to be honest with you guys. All I had to do was channel the pain and desperation I felt every time we ran out of food, got kicked out of yet another home, or had to panhandle on the street in order to make enough money to afford a hot shower at one of the myriad rest stops in my home town.
I began writing in order to entice Runners to trust me. Things were going swimmingly when I began my Gatherer blog, Be Wary of These, at least at first. I networked with the best of them, gained their trust, and fed what information I could to my bosses. Said bosses were very pleased.
I got attached. How could I not? Men and women from all over the world, suffering the same trials I went through as a child and a teenager. People trying to find hope in the darkest of nights, trying to create a community of like minded people in order to survive. I made friends, some of them closer than others. I began to care what happened to these people once I fed information to my superiors.
I didn't want these people to die. I didn't want Shady, Lis, Ell, Konaa, and countless others to suffer for what I chose to do in order to ensure my own survival. For the first time in my life, I felt like I belonged, like I had found my tribe. I started to deliberately withhold information from the Fears, or delay my delivery report in order to give the Runners a head start. I started to dispense advice on who to avoid in our world, who to befriend, and how to stay alive. With every post, Dia became more invested in the community.
This displeased my bosses... to the tune of waterboarding, bamboo shoots shoved into my nail beds, hunting knives taken to my skin. I underwent an excessive amount of brainwashing in Their attempt to rehabilitate me. Their efforts failed spectacularly, though they couldn't understand why. I could. I went through enough abuse, torture, neglect, and overall trauma as a child and teen that the things they did registered as physically painful but not really that terrible. Once you've been padlocked into chains forcing you to sit in a rickety old chair in the dark confines of a closet at two and three years old, locked in for hours on end to "prevent your evil from escaping," such things as a spot of torture or mental manipulations stop having the same effects.
After I recovered from the physical effects of what the Bureaucracy attempted, I was given a choice:
Either I was to suffer what was essentially a department change, become a field Proxy expected of running missions with specially selected teams of other murders, or take an extended leave.At the time, I wasn't capable of murderer, still believed in the inherent goodness of humanity, still believed that innocents should be protected. Oddly enough, my bosses seemed to understand and gave me a clunky broken pocket-watch with a memory wiping spell bound to it. The moment I opened it, I was told I would be able to start over.
I was able to live the life of a Runner again... what I didn't anticipate was that They never let you go.
The pocket-watch was designed to have a time limit, triggered at the exact moment I felt the most pain. If I learned my lesson from what the Bureaucracy, I would have been able to continue living as a Runner for the rest of my days. This performed as basically the opposite of Angelus's curse; you all must forgive me for my minor sentimentality. My being a fan of various geekdoms gives me an escape when I need it most, and as such, I'm a veritable walking encyclopedia of useless knowledge from many media series. I quote constantly.
As you saw with 'Storytime,' I came very close to achieving my ends. I moved, settled down, got a job, and did what any semi-normal person would do in their daily lives. You must understand, up until that point in my life, I had never really settled in one place. I was always moving even as a kid, drifting across social groups as I grew old, bitter and introverted from the things I had endured growing up. Up until the Fears' training, I didn't really know how to connect properly with other people. I had never actually been.. "normal."
As for how I feel now, I'll quote the infamous turncoat Harley Quinn: "Normal's just a setting on the dryer."
But I digress... the pocket-watch was given to me as a long running trap, meant to teach me to listen to what my superiors attempted to teach me. Even in their cruelty, they had been attempting to impart survival lessons upon me so that I too could survive, and I was too hardheaded to listen. This 'leave' was their punishment.
Despite everything I endured, I still miss those old days in Sacramento. Life was simpler then.
I lost yet another lover to the savagery of our community, and shattered emotionally. Ladybug's death caused me a moment of pain great enough to trigger the retraction of the memory spell, with dire consequences. I was a Gatherer once more, this time vicious, insane from grief, and capable of great destruction and malice. Thus the burning down of my lover's home with his body still inside. Thus my waiting for the firefighters to arrive on the scene, waiting in the side alley for one to stray from the others, and knocking him out to steal his uniform. Thus my playing a horrible prank on my old friend Shady, disguising my voice and calling her to inform her of Dia's demise. Thus my waiting at the scene of the fire in the firefighter gear, face disguised by the gas mask, only to watch as she looked around for Dia's body and found nothing.
Watched her pain and suffering, and somewhere deep inside took satisfaction in it. I knew I couldn't come back to the fold, knew I was unwelcome in the safehouses of the Runners. I was a woman without a country, without a home, desperately heartbroken and craving some kind of contact with the people that I loved, even if I had to hide my face at the time to achieve that end. I wanted to know that, somewhere in the world, someone cared enough if I died to mourn me. Because, essentially, my old life was over in that moment.
A Fear approached me, gave me the opportunity to make sure such things were prevented.
No one had to die ever again. I won't get into it now, but what I can say is that the deal came with a catch.
I was allowed to create Sanctuary, given the 'Do No Harm' spell attached to an item I wore for sentimental value, and set loose upon the world to do what harm or benefit I saw fit. I was simultaneously a Proxy and a Runner, from that moment on. I became the True Neutral party you all see before you today.
Shortly after that dreadful deal (no take-backsies! bastard Fears), I got word that a key blogger's body had been discovered in a cabin, basically in the middle of fucking nowhere. .
I packed my shit, let my Rabbits know I was taking a vacation and would be back soon, and began driving.
After driving a decent amount of time, and a multitude of pee breaks, I arrived at my destination.
The cabin itself was tiny, tucked behind a series of mangroves and cypress trees at the very end of a truly awful pothole ridden dirt road. When I got out of the truck, I was overcome with a sense of apprehension.
Shit was about to change, for better or worse.
Shrugging off what I chalked up to superstitiousness, I walked inside.
Very little awaited me inside. A rusted twin bed with naught but a bare top mattress, a battered old dresser, a scarred end table, a small desk, and various personal odds and ends. Essentially, a prison cell.
No body, which confused me greatly. The scavengers had already descended on the scene, it seemed.
On the desk, only three items were present: a bloodstained old laptop, a vial, and a map of some kind.
I, of course, began rummaging through the dresser and various bits strewn across the room. Nothing of interest beyond a Runner's notebook, which I tucked into my bug out bag to read in a minute.
Not trusting Runners as far as I could throw them at the time, I ran a neodymium magnet over the surface of the laptop, flipping it over and repeating the process on the underside, just to be sure everything would be erased. Satisfied, I threw the magnet back in my bag and set the bag on the bare mattress, turning back to the desk as I did so. This blogger, Jeff, was renowned for his paranoia and beliefs in the existence of a cure to Proxyism. I wasn't about to let whatever writings he had saved on his laptop see the light of day.
I picked up the vial, a sluggish tar like liquid sloshing against the sides as I did so. I held it up to the light to examine it, but no further clues revealed themselves to me, so I carefully pocketed it, taking care not to upend the damn thing in my jeans. I wasn't sure such a thing would affect my body chemistry, but with what I knew of Jeff the Keeper from his previous writings, I had no intention of finding out what would happen.
Last item on the list: a messily scrawled-upon map of Disney World, with nearly incomprehensible scribbles nearly blacking out the contents of it. All I could translate was 'Find them. Look here.' A giant red circle encompassing what I guessed to be Cinderella's castle, with a comically drawn arrow pointing into it.
I had heard rumors of a neutral zone existing within the confines of Disney World, where Proxies and Runners coexisted in order for both to influence the children that frequented the amusement park, but I had always dismissed them for delusions or flights of fancy made up by bored proxies round the water cooler.
Apparently, I was wrong.
I memorized the contents of the map, rolled it up, and stuck it in my back pocket; absentmindedly plotting travel details as I mused on the absurdity of my situation. A former proxy, looking for a cure? Laughable.
Finally, I returned to the bed, sitting on the mattress heavily. I pulled the notebook from my bag, wiped the dirt and crime from its cover, and began to read. What I found, I managed to obscure for 5 years.
My carelessness with the crime scene have come back to haunt me, in the form of an auto-post from none other than Jeff himself, designed to post upon the event of his death at a random point in the future.
-sigh-
Jeff the Keeper, the smug bastard, managed to fuck with me from beyond the grave.
I bet you wherever his soul resides, he is laughing at me, and waiting to see what comes next.
Jeff had named me his successor to the title of Keeper, only the 3rd in the line.
For newcomers, a Keeper is essentially a Ravenclaw pack rat version of a Gatherer. They obsessively collect the writings, records, personal keepsakes, and magical items that belong to those that have passed; in a fruitless attempt to preserve our History, in the off chance that humanity does survive the Great Game.
According to the instructions Jeff left me, "You gather information, you run, and whatever you do. Don't get involved unless you have to. Rinse, wash, and repeat. To do otherwise will get you killed."
You must understand, at the time I was still unaware of my inability to pass to the Other Side. I was responsible for a brand new group of Rabbits, coming and going as they are want to do, and I had no intention of following the intent of Jeff's instructions. All I ever did was get involved.
So I dismissed the contents of the notebook, content to be myself without the added pressure or responsibilities that a Title in our world tends to entail. I was always aware that what I was doing was already essentially the functions of a Keeper, but I was bound and determined to do it my way.
You see, every Keeper and intended Keeper up until that point had been Runners.
I was not only the first former Proxy to hold the title, but the first neutral party to do so.
I have a thing about rules that are seemingly written in stone. I rebel. I will deliberately do the opposite.
I read through the notebook, took notes, and... committed a crime, as far as the community is concerned..
I burned Jeff's notebook.
Sat and watched as it burned, just to be sure no one else ever saw the contents, all the way down to ash, and spread the ash at the base of the trees surrounding his cabin, in a sort of post-mortem ritual.
Don't ask about my random witchy shit, and I won't tell.
I made a rather terrible mistake after that, I admit. I was green, wet behind the ears, new to my job. I ventured on to Disney World without asking for help, or telling anyone where I was going. What followed has got to be the most embarrassing story of my entire life, no matter what part. Again, I won't get into it.
But Jeff, sweetheart? Thanks for the kind words. But fuck you.
.I should have been able to avoid the spotlight until the day I eventually found my way to the grave.
I hope you're resting in peace, wherever you are. I've been doing my best to live up to your expectations.