So with our first successful (for the most part) expedition of the Negative Layers, there comes a
      shit ton of work. We have to sift through the data, make sure our equipment is still functional and
      ready for the next expedition, make plans for said expedition, take care of the people who
      worked so hard to make sure this all worked out, and the insufferably endless reports that make
      me wanna die permanently. And so, with all my major follow up work done and the go-ahead
      from all of the other superiors on the project, I am going to step away for a two week hiatus from
      all Fixer work and duties. Now, I know I have a shit ton more time off than two weeks, as does
      everyone else in this organization, but I needed time to unpack everything since a lot happened
      in a short time period and there was also some other stuff I wanted to do. One of those two
      things is this journal, while I did write a VERY detailed description of what I saw in my report, I
      figured a more personal telling of what I saw might be more palatable for me, my therapy, and
      others when looking back in the future. So, without further ado, here’s what I saw in my first
      expedition of The Negative Layers.

  
      The day started with me awakening at the very top of the leviathan we had taken down the
      previous night. The Organization for Universal Safety (TOUS) is pretty fucking massive so of
      course we have somebody who’s hobby is to set up trailheads on the corpses of massive
      eldritch abominations that we killed. I sat there thinking back on the past few weeks, and how I
      was called in pretty late into this campaign. The leviathan had been harassing people in this
      universe for many, many eons even when it was already well fed so they figured they would put
      it down to prevent it from killing any more people.
  
      The nights of loading massive cannons through dark dreary storms were fresh in my memories.
      I still remember arriving on the scene intending to be one of the reserves, being met by a
      creature made entirely of legs and an ovular fuzzy mass. After asking him where I’m needed he
      immediately threw a pair of specially designed goggles at my eye and told me to head to the
      Eastern quadrant four by sixth gun which I bolted to immediately. When I arrived other strong
      folk my size were carrying heavy and dark ammunition across multiple floors of hot and dark
      steel. I immediately got myself in the nearest line and found myself crossing sparsely decorated
      halls, corridors, and bridges making sure to avoid contact with the beast in any way
      conceivable. This went on for several weeks until on the second to last day I looked directly into
      one of its piercing eyes. Those eyes, I know for a fact that both of the languages I natively
      speak can’t even begin to describe the depths and crevices inside that eye both physically and
      metaphysically, I could write several theses worth of words to describe exactly what they look
      like and it still wouldn’t be enough. The way the eyes stared back stripped my entire being
      naked for it and only it to see, parts of myself known and unknown were seen that day and it
      creeped as far in as possible hoping to wrap every single tendril it could around my brain. It was
      pretty neat.
  
      And now I’m here avoiding blood waterfalls and flesh avalanches so as to not interrupt my
      ascent. I had to stay far away from sensory components like eyes, noses, and tyqopfil so that I
      could keep my sanity from slipping any further than it already has. And god, the smell, I had to
      ask the body technicians to remove my sense of smell for the trip so that I wouldn’t instantly
      decide to throw myself from the nearest cliff.
  
      All of that pontificating was interrupted by a message from Hyb. She said, “Hey, the Negative
      Layer project (I was never good with names) is putting on the finishing touches. Could you come
      down and do the honors for us?” I choked down the scrumptious meat packets I was snacking
      on.
  
      “They got my specs done that fast? I’ll be down ASAP, I need to see this.” I said to myself a bit
      too gleefully, as I started packing away the ten meter tall titanium tent.
  
      My descent was a lot less tumultuous than my ascent due to most of the remains finally settling
      now that a week had gone by since the creature's death. Which made the second week of my
      round trip go by much faster.
  
      After reaching the bottom of the creature I immediately rushed past the chaotic festivities going
      all around as the civilization that we had just saved celebrated their survival. Games, alcohol,
      music, dancing, singing, sex, parties all assaulted my senses in a desperate bid to replace the
      total atmosphere of dread with newfound joy. Even after half a month the celebration showed no
      signs of slowing down and while I was very happy for these people and the ability to help them,
      parties and noise were never my scene. Which was why I was climbing the beast rather than
      dancing next to it. After pushing and shoving many many drunkards and people too elated to
      care, I made my way to another titanium tent. As I approached, a purple girl with four tendrils for
      legs and several beefy arms dangling from its top seemed to stretch and bounce as she moved.
      The face poking out from the center of her tree trunk body bored its pink sinister eyes at me as I
      approached. Sounds of what I’m sure were pleasure came from the tent, which is about what I
      expect given our one conversation during the battle. She definitely struck me as very horny after
      she asked me out four separate times. I sauntered over trying to avoid any unnecessary
      conversation and the stares of people who thought I was another lucky girl.
  
      “So what’s the status report?” I asked quickly hoping to minimize our already awkward
      interaction. Luna reminded me to be a bit more friendly, no thank you.
  
      “They got the 79th gear sets stabilized by using the Kleminsinss theory and found that it fixed
      the problem with the generators on top so everything should be a-okay for a test drive.” She
      said in a way that would probably sound flirtatious if we were speaking in her native language
      given our interactions. “Now, it seems like this has been stressing you out in the past few days.
      Would you like to-”
  
      “Thanks, but I need to get going.” I spew out awkwardly before turning around and sauntering
      back in the direction I came.
  
      The chaos started to get to me as I barge through the town and I make for the nearest Crack a bit
      too jubilantly because Luna reminded me to calm down on my way over. I do so before stepping
      into the maddening endlessness of the Crack. It takes me about another week to find my way,
      but I step out of the portal and into some kind of research base which at its center houses a
      massive familiar sky-touching tower of my own design completely surrounded by folks testing
      components and carrying equipment back and forth along steel, barely functional platforms. It
      was an early design and we hope to improve it with future iterations, but for now it’ll at least get
      me over into the negative Layer.
  
      After a while of taking in the magnificent ramshackle structure, I began to feel a presence loom
      over me. “Dr. Alexandria Fritz, it’s good to finally meet you.” Said a disembodied genderless
      voice which I likely couldn’t see through the filters in my sanity. (yes their voice can be seen)
  
      “You must be Prr. Ld, it’s good to finally meet you. Thanks for all of the assistance in keeping the
      bottom quarter of The Tower up to date with construction, it’s really appreciated and I’m sorry I
      couldn’t thank you for all the help until now. You know how it is with the quadrillions of scientists
      alone that work on these kinds of projects.”
  
      “Of course Dr. Alex, I find your work endlessly fascinating seeing as you're the only thing that
      can access the Layers.” They say with a genuine tone. “We’ve known about the Layers for years
      but you’ve put our understanding of it above anything else's, I do need to say that your
      dedication and hard work is very impressive.”
  
      It’s really nice to come from the universe I knew where reputation and prestige were held above
      actual possibilities and results. Then to come here where I could tell them that I can create
      teleportation technology with a string and some explosives and they’d get about a hundred
      people working on the project immediately for no other reason than scientific advancement.
      “Thank you and I hope to continue improving our knowledge for eons even if I do wish to keep
      the technology out of most people’s hands. Now, would you like to help me do the honors?”
  
      They nodded and hit me with a hard, “It would be my pleasure,” before we made our way to the
      teleporter frame. I tripped on an uncovered wire and was caught by the higher being who
      metaphorically looked up to me for my work, which made me feel strangely uncomfortable.
      Especially since I can’t even feel this guy grabbing me from tripping up.
  
      We made our way to the teleporter at the base of The Tower which swiftly brought us into the
      main chamber and nearly inside a passerby who simply shifted their form around the teleporter
      receiver pad. The room was filled with haphazard wires, computers, power cores, and spare
      transformers we couldn’t fit anywhere else inside the several hundred meter wide room. And
      when I say filled, I mean, computers, machinery, and desk cubicles hanging from the ceiling to
      make room, kind of filled. At the center of the room was a pentagonal metal platform surrounded
      by pylons and glass. On the platform were my two research partners and fellow expeditionists,
      Illfer the Undeath and Giep Yorrfull. Illfer, was brought along for her expertise in various fields of
      biology, the environmental sciences, and undzoology. Meanwhile, Giep was brought along only
      because I was getting annoyed with some staff members insisting we needed to bring a
      diplomat in case any civilizations existed there, even though I had absolutely no plans to
      actually interact with anyone there (especially since it would be our first visit). But oh well.
  
      “So are we ready for this test run, Ld?”
  
      “Yes, all safety procedures and preparations were completed mere moments after your arrival.”
      Which explained the giant fire that erupted from the 799th floor as soon as I looked up. “We only
      await your order Dr. Alex.”
  
      We had several thousands and close to millions of tests so at this point I was pretty numb to the
      possible failure, without too much fanfare I told her to begin preparations and made my way to
      the platform while they made their way to one of the bigger clusters of computers or devices
      adjacent to computers in this massive room.
       
      “Are you two ready?” I asked as I turned to my two companions, both of whom offered their own
      unique ways of saying yes. Illfer by twisting her eyes and Giep by vomiting up a part of her
      rather large breakfast. After that I gave an affirmative nod to Ld before they started up the test.
  
      The same jargon, procedures, and instructions that I had heard way too many goddamn times
      blurred into the chaos of my mind, almost to a point that I took certain instructions ahead of
      time. Raise your arms to allow the scanner to see everything, close your eyes to avoid too much
      radiation exposure, let the mind ease into the madness, take my jhyu off, blah blah blah, I
      pushed through the slog of instructions until the moment finally came.
  
      “Prepare for atomic disassemblement.” Said Ld as a feeling of bliss and unfeeling washed over
      me. Just as the experiment usually shuts down and the safety measures would power
      everything off, purple waves stretched out across my vision as I started to feel the washing
      waves of my entire being falling into a new world.
  
      Now, according to my theories, The Negative Layer is where things that should not exist are
      stored. I.e. Creatures too big for existence to store, living beings that cannot possibly exist, and
      structures that will bring about the end times to all of existence. Standard stuff like that. Which
      seemed to be accurate when the first thing for me to encounter once I had found myself
      dropped into the world was a bird that was simultaneously inside out, upside down all the time,
      and had enough sharp teeth to weigh it down completely yet still wave-dashed upright. It tried to
      eat me instantly upon eye contact. After killing it and being drenched in an otherworldly amount
      of bluish-yellow blood (it was kind of more like saliva) which instantly infected the one cut it got
      on my belly, I looked around at my environment. Everything was drenched in a dark purple
      similar in tone to the color I saw as I entered it, almost everything, living and dead, were
      covered in crystals, fungi, and all sorts of feasting decomposers that were just trying to make it
      by. Things that would take way too long to describe ran by me at lightning speeds and off in the
      distance, past the fog, I saw something as big as a planet gently float by, I can still hear the cry it
      made in my worst nightmares.
  
      “Are you two alright?” I said while I was disinfecting and patching up my wound. As the primary
      combatant and medic of the crew (as well as resident physicist I guess) it was good to see my
      services were already working wonders.
  
      “I’m good,” shouted Giep, who looked like she was trying to jerk off a giant slab of sentient
      squarish meat that was covered inside and out with teeth.
  
      “I’m alright,” said Illfer, who was successfully trying to tug her arm out of a hole in reality.
  
      “I’m doing alright too,” Luna said to me privately, which I relayed to my companions. Hearing her
      voice reminded me to check for something just then. I raised my hand and tried to slide it
      through my chest, my nerves prickled and sparked with the familiar feeling as my hand glided
      through the Layers and back out. My partners stared in astonishment. We originally thought that
      my connection to the Layers would be cut off since we saw no evidence that any other Layers to
      reality existed in the Negative Layers beyond the one. But this discovery made this single test
      entirely worth it. Even if we died now, I could safely say we succeeded for the first time in
      decades.
  
      Leaving behind the small portal, we surveyed the area and saw that the few hostile beings
      around us were conveniently avoiding our location. I didn’t wonder at the time if that
      foreshadowed anything because I’m a moron.
  
      “Hey, Illfer and Giep, I don’t see a whole lot of creatures approaching us and since we’re on a
      hill do you guys think we could set up a base of operations here?” I said after about five minutes
      of making sure our heads wouldn’t spontaneously explode from any sudden change in
      pressure.
  
      Illfer chimed in with her voice which was flatter than a cutting board, “Well the elevated position
      would allow us to survey our surroundings very easily, not to mention there's plenty of species
      around here to study. I think we can at least send some data back to the people on the other
      side even if we’re killed.” I nodded in response.
  
      “Alright, then it’s settled. Giep.”
  
      Giep immediately shot back, “Already on ‘er boss,” in her low deep tone that made me think of
      coal.
  
      I muttered a “That’s what she said,” before getting to work. We spent the next hour getting a
      makeshift shelter of everything-proof malleable metal tarp set around us before getting our
      portable machinery set up. Giep watched our surroundings while Illfer and I set up my computer
      to conduct tests on various physical aspects of the environment: gravity, friction, and electrical
      forces, although going beyond that was difficult seeing as none of my results were ever
      consistent, even taking into account various environmental factors.
  
      It was at this point that I noticed that the ground would literally start to change colors and size
      below my feet, which somehow isn’t the weirdest thing I’ve seen the ground below my feet do in
      my 4801 years of existence. Illfer wasn’t getting much better results as she was running into the
      same problems I was even with her soil tests and the tests she conducted with the finger sized
      rodents she was catching. Suddenly it hit me, or rather ate me, on why this was happening. The
      creature we were standing on suddenly opened its giant maw causing us to nearly fall in as we
      stood on its lip. When I looked down into its mouth, I saw teeth of varying sizes, shapes, and
      function that lined its jaw as it ran in a straight line for millions of kilometers. Amongst the teeth
      were the souls of previous victims who screamed for us to help them get out and to escape from
      this dark abyss.
  
      In response to seeing all of this I calmly yelled. “JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, GIEP WHERE’S
      OUR ESCAPE ROUTE.”
  
      She responded in kind, “186 DEGREES OF AZIMUTH, 3.5 KILOS TO EXIT OF THE VALLEY.”
      And our sprint started as we hauled ass across the now blurry and purple landscape.
  
      Illfer tried to hide her sadness over her loss of equipment as we ran towards a gaping hole in
      the carnivorous looking mountains. Luna occasionally manifested as two massive fists which
      allowed me to beat off anything looking for a spare meal as we ran. Although I wasn’t quite sure
      if fighting the giant dirt covered beast that was following us who’s outside form shifted and
      existed in shapes and sizes that were hard for me to keep up and give a consistent description
      to was a good idea. It seemed to slip along the ground but also was able to stand without
      trouble. And it’s eyes were squarish I should mention.
  
      After four hours of running and hiding from unnecessary fights, we eventually made it out of the
      valley we were stuck in.
  
      “Welp, I think we can safely say that this whole thing is now a bust especially considering our
      equipment is gone. Should we get out while we can, we at least made one discovery?” I said to
      our group.
  
      Illfer chimed in first, “IIIIIII wholeheartedly agree Dr. Alex, I don’t see much of a point since we’ve
      seen a lot as well. What about you Giep?”
  
      “I also agree.”
  
      “Great, then it’s settled, le-” I was then interrupted by several, I guess draconic figures
      appearing from the nearby metallic rocks(?) who started to surround us with strange weapons.
      They were covered in scales, had horns sprouting from the bottom of their backs all the way to
      their heads, as well as snouts with forty holes. However, the strange part is that they were all
      humanoid and appeared somewhat familiar to Illfer and I at least in that manner. However, some
      things were off, for instance their snouts appeared to bend at unordinary angles, their scales
      tore away in patterns to reveal juicy flesh underneath, and some horns seemed surgically
      removed and taken off. I figured these would be battle scars but they all seem hurt purposefully.
      My observations were interrupted when a cute one with the scales on their neck gone came up
      to me. When she was in front of me, I noticed that her proportions were twice my own in every
      way. Just as I was about to speak up she said.
  
      “My name is Gartorias, Captain of the First Guard. State your name and purpose for being at
      the base of the Indormas, Sodom.” Then I noticed the huge military base standing about half a
      kilometer behind her.

  
      That day I was very thankful that my coin toss landed on me wearing trunks as opposed to
      panties. I was also thankful for the makeshift orchiectomy Olga gave me years ago because
      being in a jail cell stripped to your unmentionables isn’t something I expected to happen when I
      woke up this morning. They also tried to take my eyepatch away but gave up after finding it
      bolted to my face. Even after telling the guards that we were just researchers and trying to tell
      them about the Fixers they still decided to lock us up in here for god knows what reason since
      they never elaborated. I was gonna just beat them up and make a run for it but Giep told us to
      stay with them for “diplomatic purposes” and after she annoyed me enough we relented.
      
      The trip up to the base was surprisingly uneventful. We took a very strange and winding path
      that we received no explanation on. Although we weren’t complaining since it resulted in all the
      horrible creatures that surrounded the area to completely ignore us. I heard one of the soldiers
      use the word ‘Helpet’ when Giep asked them about it, but didn’t hear anything else at the time.
      After a long trek that took us across more impossible landscapes, we came across a giant metal
      fortress made of hard lines and fuck ugly patterns, with holes in the walls that had barrels of
      great weapons poking out of them. After that they rushed us through some rooms and tossed us
      into this “jail.”
      
      Taking a look around the room, I noticed that the infrastructure consisted of nothing but metal
      pipes. They snaked their ways through the building forming shapes that resembled a floor,
      ceiling, and walls. Even the bed and jail bars were composed of these pipes. Judging from my
      outside view the pipes were the sole material for this building. My comrades had been placed in
      different jail cells so I was wondering what they were thinking about the place.
      
      As for the pipes, well they were made of some metal that I hadn’t recognized before. According
      to some later analysis, the metal was consistent with ashes whose molecular structure was
      temporarily modified to be extremely adhesive to other molecular structures like itself. As for its
      strength, well that really just resulted from how tightly packed together these ashes had been
      made, speaking volumes to just how much ash was required for Sodom’s creation. As for why
      pipes, we still don’t know and theories are scattered and nonsensical.
      
      After taking a decent nap I got up from my oversized and uncomfortable metallic pipe-made bed
      and stood in the middle of my jail cell that hastily had a metal sheet welded onto the outside to
      keep us in due to us being small enough to slip through the bars that adorned the other cells. I
      was only crawling over to the edge of the bed so I could sit up when I felt Luna physically stir
      inside me.
      
      “Had a good nap?” She said knowing that she was watching me this whole time.
      
      “Yeah… It was kinda rejuvenating.” I said stifling a yawn mid-sentence.
      
      She giggled a little. “That’s good to hear, how has the trip been so far?” She’s also recently
      begun to look into my thoughts less recently, presumably to have more conversation with me.
      Which I’ve strangely found more endearing than I thought I would. She never had full access to
      my mind, but the barriers we’ve been able to put up for our own slices of privacy over the
      centuries have been fulfilling.
      
      “It’s been really good so far, even just this tiny step has been a massive help to us. After
      decades of research we now are close to a consistent method of entry for the Negative Layers.
      Not only that but the cameras we’ve had inserted into our retinas have recorded everything
      we’ve seen. A lot of new and exciting prospects are open for my research and I’m glad for that.”
      
      She was beside me now holding me close. “Well it’s nice to see you like this, I was worried that
      you might be getting bored soon or that you would struggle to find something to focus on.”
      
      I had barely even noticed that I had wrapped my arm into her mass. “Well I was worried that you
      didn’t like probing my thoughts and my responses to your responses to my thoughts.” She
      snickered at my terrible attempt at our weird and kinda maybe flirting.
      
      “Yeah, I guess I was kinda selfish at first, I wanted to hear your voice more so I slowed down
      reading your thoughts. Glad to see you like it darling.” She was also getting more flirty recently,
      maybe, I couldn’t quite tell.
      
      “Yeah, I do and I’d love to talk to you more but we gotta get out of here ASAP.” She huffed at
      this.
      
      “I understand, but we’re talking all night when we get out, promise.”
      
      “Promise.” I felt like I could take one last stab at conversation before we got back to business.
      “So did you think that First Guard girl was kinda cu-”
      
      “Look alive Alex, they're coming.” She said knowing that she was cutting off my important and
      discussion.
      
      Bolts on a nearby door were audibly loosened with loud machinery from the outside of my jail
      cell. The screams of the drills awakened my two companions who jumped and yelped at the
      loud new noise. Eventually heavy metal was pushed aside scraping against the floor. It took
      them only a few seconds before they had what sounded like a blowtorch if it had a more
      aggressive hiss to its flames. I heard the searing burn of metal and a metal plate fall down
      followed by the blowtorch now being used on my jail cell. As soon as my metal plate fell a
      blinding light shone into my room making me avert my eyes as Luna withdrew back into me.
      
      By the time the third metal plate fell I heard someone clinically discussing physical components
      of us, starting with Illfer.
      
      “Six asymmetric appendages, four eyes in 2x2 grid pattern, medium build, mouth with
      downward slit, smooth green-ish yellow skin, 21 cm in width (units are translated version for
      accurate), 250 cm in height, quiet and savvy personality.” Then they moved onto me.
      
      “Four symmetric appendages, two eyes horizontal, bulky build, long ears and tail on back of hip,
      fur, 52 cm in width, 199 cm in height, very angry could be problematic.” Then they moved onto
      Giep.
      
      “No visible appendages, one tall eye, liquid build, several strands of an unknown substance
      coming out of their top, 67 cm width, 48 cm tall, calm, collected, and easy to negotiate with.“
      
      After that they turned off their big blinding lights, revealing that there were three members of
      whoever took us in the room outside my cell. The first was obviously Gartorias which brought
      me some comfort only due to my passing familiarity with her, the other two I did not identify, it
      was obvious one of them was the one analyzing us.
      
      “Splendid, now secure the prisoners and prepare them for initiation. Also watch out for the furry
      one, she doesn’t like listening to others.” I ignored the giant cattle prod like weapons Garty’s two
      henchmen were pulling out in favor of being a little mean that day.
      
      “Oh don’t worry, I only disobey ugly motherfuckers like you two. Besides, I doubt anything any of
      you say would be worth disobeying, due to nothing but raw incompetence.” She didn’t even turn
      to look at me. I knew I was just spouting bullshit, but I wanted to antagonize her for no other
      reason than the satisfaction of seeing someone like her lose her temper.
      
      “Disobedience will be responded to with execution. Are there any questions?”
      
      Giep tried to speak up but I was already dedicated, there really wasn’t any stopping me. I tried
      to look as petty as possible when I flopped onto my bed. “Could you fetch me some fucking
      water? It’s hot as fuck in here.”
      
      She now looked at me with an angry glare before walking over to my cell, arms behind the back
      in a relaxed position that showed no weakness. “Step out of the cage now, and don’t say a word
      and none of this will be put on your record.” At this point I was a snowball rolling down a hill,
      there simply was no stopping me.
      
      “I think I’ll just take another nap.” She was in the cell now with one of those cattle prods in her
      hands. Which wasn’t surprising considering that I beat up half of her squad.
      
      “Prisoner #12, if you don’t step out of this cell, I will end your life right here and now.” She
      growled.
      
      I was snowballing so hard now I didn’t even think about the implications of the low prisoner
      count. “Well maybe if the person ordering me around wasn’t some suckup dipshit who’d jump off
      a bridge the second she was asked I would. But seeing as you are a suckup dipshit, Garty, I
      think I’ll do somethin’ else.” Giep was pleading for us to stop but I could barely make out what
      she was saying.
      
      “Prisoner #12 get out n-”
      
      “You first fuckhead.”
      
      Suddenly the cattleprod dropped to the ground and she stormed over to me, grabbing the scruff
      of my fur below the neck with her giant arms and pinned me to the pipe wall. That made my
      brain shut off for a good five seconds. I kinda wish she noticed back then. Although I was still
      able to hear what she had to say next.
      
      She said in a low growly whisper, “Do you think I want to be here in this hellscape? Do you think
      I want to be listening to the orders of these mad warmongers? Do you think I want to spend the
      rest of my life killing for people I don’t care about? No, I don’t want any of this, and I never did,
      so can you please shut the fuck up and make my life a bit easier by just following orders!” My
      snowball had hit an abrupt stop at the bottom of th hill, a question floated to the front of my mind
      as it was clearing up and I couldn’t help but to articulate it in the moment.
      
      “Do you want to get out of here with us?”
      
      Hesitation flushed her face and she tried to look away from me with shame because she knew
      her response, she could only manage a cut off “How-” before her coworker cut her off.
      
      “Captain, we need to get the prisoners moving.” Said the one who analyzed us earlier. She put
      on a composed face before letting me go and stepping back.
      
      “You have thirty seconds to recompose yourself Prisoner #12 and to follow us. Or you will be
      executed.” She then turned and began to walk away, but as she was stepping out she looked
      back at me with a face I couldn’t quite read.
      
      In about twenty seconds we were all out of our cells following Garty while the two extra guards
      were behind us. I noted the thousands of empty cells of various sizes and shapes that compose
      the two walls of the room we were in. As we’re dragged along, I notice Giep looking, for lack of a
      better description, like she’s about to kill everyone in this base.
      
      So I turn to her and say, “Yo, what’s up?”
      
      She didn’t like my being so casual and aloof if it wasn’t obvious, “What are you doing!” I raised
      an eyebrow to this and wasn’t able to respond before she continued. “While I know you can
      be… rather protective, this isn’t just a scientific mission, we agreed that diplomacy could be
      necessary and now that we know life exists in the negative layers, it is! We need to be
      establishing friendly relations with them and not antagonize them at every opportunity.
      Especially when you punched one in the face out there!”
      
      A tinge of regret slithered into my head as she started her rant, which was fair seeing as we
      barely even understood these people. I really only had been going along with things because
      with the plan out the window there wasn’t much else to follow so I followed my instincts. I don’t
      properly regret what I said, but I will admit I didn’t think it through much. Still, seeing them
      immediately throwing us into a cell and ‘testing’ us made me uneasy.
      
      I sighed, “Alright fair, I’ll keep my mouth shut, (“Good” muttered Garty) but considering what
      they’ve done already I’m keeping an eye out. If anything goes even slightly wrong, I’m blasting
      our way out alright?”
      
      She nodded, “Fair, just don’t go punching people for no good reason.” Illfer suddenly tapped my
      shoulder.
      
      “I think your little rebellions were cool.” Illfer usually doesn’t say much but I appreciated this
      affirmation of my unhinged violence so I gave her a wink. She didn’t seem to notice for some
      reason.
      
      After about a half an hour, we arrived at the room. It was a giant sextagon with a pit in the
      middle that shared the room's rough outline just shrunken in with a really high ceiling. There was
      also another sort of pit in the ceiling, parallel to the one in the floor, except everything up there
      was just nothingness, whatever that concept may mean to you. Inside the pit on the floor was
      what appeared to be a spider's web but mechanical in nature while organic in appearance. The
      only way I can describe it is that it looked as if it were perfectly designed by an expert of some
      sort. Below the webbing was a dark nothing, it might’ve gone on forever for all we knew at the
      time. However, a later measurement showed that it had a depth of about 27,719 km. It’s worth
      adding that a teleportation frame of some kind laid at the bottom and top of the chamber.
      Two guards that were already in the room dropped three bags in front of our feet as they made
      us approach the pit.
      
      Garty spoke up, “Inside are your items you had on your way into Sodom. You may need them
      for the trial.” Inside mine was just the belt I keep with a revolver holster and knife holster on the
      back that I keep my nine-shooter and hunting knife in. I keep the rest of my stuff somewhere in the
      Layers, so they don’t need to worry about it. After sliding it on, I look over to see what my
      companions take out, not being sure of them since I know they only brought lab equipment,
      which turns out I was incorrect on. Giep brought out a small pipe that extended and extruded
      into a shoulder mounted exoskeleton that bore several turrets (the best way to describe her
      automated weapons). I looked over to Illfer who simply took out a long railgun that I must’ve
      missed in the inventory check. It slowly whirred to life and its eyes peered back at me as if to tell
      me to buzz off, like an overprotective dad. I looked away in shame for reasons I could only
      barely grasp.
      
      As we finished preparing our weaponry our escorts slowly approached us. Garty, now at my
      back as I crouched before the pit, said a simple rude command “Get in.” Before I could ask if
      she liked the view she along with the other guards booted us into the pit.
      
      I had to use my right arm to grab one of the wires while using Luna to split my left arm into two
      separate arms so I could grab my two companions who nearly fell below. As I helped the two up
      to regain our footing, I heard a noise in the ceiling as something began to drop below. A
      horrendous metallic screeching accompanied an ear splitting squeal that instantly made me
      want to vomit my breakfast out. Later I found that the effect was used by hunters in here to stun
      their prey amongst certain species. It took about five seconds for the thing to hit the webbing in
      the pit and, at the time, peculiarly, it didn’t have any effect on the webbing or us, no shaking of
      the web or tremors from it cleaving through the air as it fell.
      
      The thing stood before us on the opposite side of the pit and it appeared humanoid. A giant
      round clump of greenish-purple flesh was held up by two wide stumpy legs, slits of various sizes
      and shapes appeared to not only serve as vision but also protruded clawed tentacles that
      floated and writhed around its vicinity. Atop it seemed to be a spinning blade of rusted metal that
      pooled into a gaping colorless hole. Where that hole went I still don’t know. What didn’t help
      about its ugly visage was that it was slowly approaching us.
      
      Illfer, surprisingly keeping cool, fired a single shot at one of the closest slits which seemed to
      simply roll off and around the creature creating a giant hole in the pit behind it.. We all stared at
      it quizzically and after absentmindedly scratching my left tit for a second I decided to take a
      look.
      
      “Spread out you two, I’m gonna try and figure out the problem.”
      
      “Got it.” The two said before pushing off and trying to make a little space between themselves
      with what little room they had. As a response I quickly created a small explosion below my feet
      so that I could get in close. After doing that I slipped into the Layers and back out inside it. What
      I found was exactly what I expected. Giant pulsating and vibrating organs composed his
      innards, stuffing me to the inside of its skin. I used the Layers to put my fingers through its skin
      slowly testing its capabilities. Although that stopped quickly when I figured out what the problem
      was right away.
      
      After bouncing back out and rejoining my companions I let them know the simple discovery I
      made. “It has no mass. Which means it has no friction, which means we can’t hit it with
      anything” They both looked at me like I had just crushed their families in a trash compactor.
      
      “But isn’t that impossible.” Illfer says rather timidly and now looking a little frightful.
      
      “Well these are the Negative Layers, so it isn’t too much of a surprise that something impossible
      could be possible.” I said way too casually for either of their liking.
      
      “Well what the fuck are we going to do?” Giep said now panicking as if she hasn’t been through
      worse.
      
      “Relax, we’ll just drop it into the pit, now you two go to opposite sides of the pit so I can create
      the trap.” They both hesitated.
      
      “How will we get to the other sid-” Giep said before I could grab both of them with one of Luna’s
      large sludge appendages coming out of my left arm. I then tossed them to where they needed to
      be on opposite sides of the pit in one smooth throw.
      
      “And don’t forget to stick the landing.” I said before sitting down to investigate the webbing while
      also hoping they stick the landing. At first, I tried to cut right through the wire with the hunting knife, I
      was afraid to pull anything out of the Layers out of fear that they may shoot me from above for
      some kind of cheating or other bullshit. Cutting right through gave no progress so I took a closer
      look and saw that the webs had inconsistent materials. Some strips of the outer rope had metal
      that was impossible for my knife to carve through unless it was at a specific angle. So instead I
      tried angling my knife as I tore the webbing apart and that gave me some good progress. It took
      about a minute of calm cutting for me to cut the web and when I did I grabbed onto a nearby
      web to hold myself up. After pulling myself up I looked over to my two companions who looked
      like they were scared shitless for some reason.
      
      After this I looked over to a lonely section of webbing and hop, skip, and jumped over to set up
      the trap by mostly fraying a section of webbing near the end of the web closest to the center of
      the pit. Dodging one Giep’s rockets I turned to my two companions.
      
      “Hey guys the trap is ready!” My two companions were frantically shooting back at the moment
      and angrily looked at me as I called them. I waved them over to join me on the opposite side of
      the webbing that I had set my trap on and they slowly bounded over to me bringing it close.
      
      “So what’s the plan?” Giep said shakily.
      
      “We wait!” I said excitedly.
      
      “So are you going to tell us what the trap is?” Illfer said fearfully.
      
      “It’s a surprise!” I said courageously.
      
      We waited and waited as it got closer and closer. My two companions shook enough to make a
      normal girl fall when the monster’s appendages were nearly on top of us.
      
      “Now!” I screamed as I grabbed the two with Luna’s arms and exploded my way to the other
      side of the web with a gracious somersault. Quickly cutting the rope while my two companions
      tried not to vomit, I was able to drop the beast into the pit. It seemed to quiet down as it
      awkwardly descended and as its meal slipped away from it. Here’s another question for ya. How
      does something with no mass get affected by gravity? Simple, it doesn’t, it does it’s best to
      return to the ground that it came from!
      
      In response to our victory a rope was immediately dropped for us by the nearest edge of the pit.
      I used Luna’s arm to grab both of my companions (“Oh Pouler, not again”, said Giep while
      holding back the vomit) as I approached the rope.
      
      After climbing up with my two companions I turned to notice that they were both passed out.
      Yeah, they were absolutely not prepared for that. When I reached the top I came to meet the
      scornful face of Garty.
      
      “Hey handsome~ How’d I do?” I asked the captain of the First Guard.
      
      She greeted me into the organization with hatred stuck to her tongue. “You’ve passed with flying
      colors, new blood, welcome to the First Guard.”

  
      Before I could ask anything about the test we were all dragged to our welcome tour, even while
      some of us were unconscious.
  
      Our welcome was immediately interrupted with a bloodbath.
  
      We were brought into a bunk room that could hold about 5000 people in it and the whole place
      was packed with various members of the guards fighting tooth and nail to win what I could only
      describe as the universe’s deadliest pillow fight. We ended up having to retreat out of the room
      and bunker below down a floor until the chaos stopped. Eventually we navigated mountains of
      blood, gore, and the broken bodies of about a tenth of the occupants of the bunk room while
      ignoring their victory party as all three of us slept, having been shoved into this room by our
      escorts who were nonplussed by the fighting.
  
      Next morning Giep learned that there were multiple factions amongst these people, the
      members of which are called The Brenjulfrie. There were about 137 factions when Giep asked
      later that night although the number was constantly in flux and she got a lot of different answers,
      assuming she even got a straight answer. The only advice we needed was to stay as far away
      from them as possible.
  
      After our rough first night’s sleep, we were told we would have about a week of free rein before
      we would be forced to take up positions. We all agreed that we would leave by then since we
      did still need to prove that the exit portal worked back then, but until that time we would explore
      and find out as much as we can about whoever the Indormas are. So we all went our separate
      ways trying to gather and document information.
  
      I first hit up their defenses, since I thought looking at big guns would make me a little more
      enthusiastic about the whole being prisoners thing. I spent hours climbing up and down massive
      artillery emplacements each with different functionalities and constructions. I explored about an
      eighth of one wall’s weaponry and saw guns with barrels that were about 50 meters out from the
      wall, guns that were chained to the entire room they were in, guns builts inside cannons, artillery
      batteries that fed information through hundreds of computers, guns that could bring a god to
      their knees, and so much more that I could write several books about them. I only got to see the
      guns in action three times and I made sure to record as much as I could each time. God I still
      pull up those videos every once in a while to see those beauties. In the end I counted that the
      amount of guns on the wall were in a 796 x 498 grid pattern which meant that there were a total
      of 396408 guns in total on that wall, although all six walls were different sizes to accommodate
      the base’s weird geometry so I can’t give the total number. I should note that I only got so much
      ground because I was running around trying to avoid the fighting amongst the people there.
  
      Also as a side note, I discovered that there were Indormas about three to four times Garty’s size
      in Sodom since the ladder was about proportional to that math. Further proof was the single
      Indormas who filled the entire ladder while sliding down it as I was climbing up, and if I didn’t
      dodge at the last second I would have become an Alex sandwich.
  
      While exploring the walls, I ended up eavesdropping on a conversation about how procreation is
      handled in Sodom. I’m just not gonna include the conversation, because a lot of it involved
      discussion about sexual intercourse with maternal figures so I’m only gonna include the
      valuable information. Every 10 days, about two hundred individuals are selected for a
      mandatory day-long breeding program. The program takes place in an open space room called
      ‘the breeding chambers’ that include a large amount of pools meant to stimulate and arouse its
      occupants. After the selection is made the 200 are split down the middle at random for the
      process and are paired into partners. The Indormas all have the sex organs to produce
      equivalents of both sperm and eggs, but need another partner to reproduce, who could feasibly
      be anyone in their species. By the end of the day, each partner needs to have produced at least
      two babies and on the rare occasion that they don’t a team of scientists is gathered to determine
      who’s body is unable to reproduce. And whichever partner was the culprit they are, as you’d
      guess, taken out back so to speak (and if both are responsible then yeah same result). This
      same consequence is doled out to those who simply refuse to partake in the program. By the
      end of the day, all of the babies are put into mental stasis until their bodies are fully grown after
      about 25 days, when they become fully prepared for soldierhood. I thought about Garty’s
      reaction to my asking if she wanted to leave as I walked away, especially since the program
      included everyone in the base. I don’t really need to comment on this.
  
      Another observation I made before I hit the hay that day was that there were occasionally other
      species who were presumably former prisoners just like us. Before I went into the mess hall to
      eat dinner, I saw, well, something different. As they walked by me all I perceived was the fact
      that they were a walking, talking black hole that failed to suck in anything other than my
      attention. My internal, human attempt to spot anything human in it completely failed as they
      walked away. According to Illfer, she also saw a bird-mingd-dragonfly-hutqip thing while walking
      around. Also I should note that Giep didn’t see any black hole person as I was walking into the
      mess hall or really anybody.
  
      On my second day I checked out the training rooms/hideout shelters. As I entered the rooms, I
      noted how tightly packed the pipes that made up the exteriors of the room were. It was likely to
      reinforce the rooms on the inside, from whatever fights happen in them, and on the outside,
      likely to help it serve as a bunker. I later learned that its purpose as a shelter was assigned
      some time after the rooms construction. I should also note that the walls looked like they had
      seen at least two wars. Nothing was unscathed, absolutely nothing. The damage to the room
      was, in a certain sense, kind of beautiful. It was a horrifying painting of the capacity for
      destruction the Indormas were capable of and it made me stare for a bit longer than I thought it
      would have. After trying and failing to pull my attention away by talking with Luna, someone
      came up to me and pulled my attention away properly by discussing the weaponry of the army
      since they recognized I was one of the prisoner recruits. He told me that a majority of Indormas
      took up weaponsmithing as a hobby, apparently improving your capacity for murder can make
      for a fun pastime when there's nothing else to do.
  
      Their was almost a sick kind of fucked up art about their capacity for making weapons that in a
      weird way, drew me in. Art is a lot of things to many people and those individual things can
      change from the perspective of different individuals. To me, art is about expressing a feeling that
      you can’t just convey with simple words as well as a way of showing to the world just how
      fucked up you are without coming out and saying it maybe. Our individual existence and the
      existence around us causes pain and healing, by its constantly existentially contrary nature, and
      really the only way to convey that complex beauty is with art. I want to do good with my life, yet I
      also own and know how to operate a pistol. This was a really roundabout way of saying that
      there is an artistic beauty to the individuality that each deadly weapon these people made has
      and I’m not sure why I wrote this paragraph.
  
      Anyway, over time, I learned that the guy’s name is Shuil and that he’s amongst the 0.001% of
      people in the army who are able to retire. He told me that I could come to the forge in two days
      (This was because a big gang war was currently taking place down there) to watch him work,
      which I agreed to.
  
      Shuil took me for a proper tour of Sodom since the digital map they had given us was starting to
      bug out. Nothing of note was talked about, we just kind of shot the shit, but what was interesting
      was when I asked him to elaborate when he mentioned that some patrols bring back weird stuff.
  
      “...Oh yeah, yeah, the patrols around Sodom find and bring back the weirdest things. One time,
      they brought in some aquatic creature that they said was floating through the sky. Only reason
      why they killed it and brought it back was because they had to defend themselves when it tried
      to reverse shit them. One of them also came back with photographic evidence of a mountain
      that was upside down. Like it had been scooped up, flipped, then gently placed back down
      without even being disturbed. Crazy stuff. They also saw an entire abandoned military base out
      there. The place was occupied by the Unh’s before they underwent metamorphosis. Strangely,
      all of the corpses at the untouched and defunct base all had only their hearts stolen and nothing
      else, even though they had no cuts anywhere on their bodies. Oh also, I ended up being
      assigned patrol duty when I was about four. However, my patrolling days ended quickly when I
      stepped in a small still puddle, it couldn’t have possibly been high enough to go above the sole
      of my boot and yet, in about thirty minutes, I was coughing up blood and vomit and pondering if I
      was gonna fade back into the dark hole as my squad mates rushed me back to base. What the
      patrols face out there is unpredictable and as a result they usually only pick the most exemplary
      amongst us to go. Doubly so, the job is essential as it means gathering useful food and
      materials that appear on the outside that are vital for our survival. Patrols are usually made up
      of about three hundred soldiers and usually only about a fifth of that return, and usually a patrol
      is sent out twice a day so you can imagine what that does for our numbers. So I’m glad that
      puddle crippled me from going out there ever again. I don’t need that shit clogging up my life.
      Oh also, one of the recent patrolmen said that on the way out of the base, she saw a bright
      shadow covering the entire sky and when she looked up it was gone. Pretty weird. Anyway,
      wanna check out the haunted basement before you have to hit the hay?” And so, we checked
      out the haunted basement and walking corpses that occupied it (by the way, check on Phil down
      there if anybody has the chance to, poor guy) before I hit the hay.
  
      On the third day, we found Illfer dead. She had been killed during a night raid after waking up to
      grab some water. We found her corpse being dragged to a pile of bodies destined for the
      incinerator, where her ashes would be hardened and used to make weaponry or more pipe
      walls. She was missing all of her middle leg, half of her right leg, her upper hand, had a small
      portion of her jaw torn off, and two large pieces of shrapnel sticking out of her chest. We spent
      all day trying to grab her body while nobody was looking so we could give her a proper burial.
  
      After which we needed to sneak her outside Sodom so they wouldn’t take her to the incinerator
      for more ashes. It took us until about night time there for us to find the time to give her her burial
      rites. (note: the day/night cycle is about 39 hours here with about five of those hours being
      dedicated to sleep) We also had to steal some supplies in order to complete the ceremony that
      she requested for each death when possible. I may not understand her wanting this ritual done,
      but I didn’t need to understand that desire to respect it. Within a half an hour of that day’s newly
      established curfew (which allowed about an hour of time in a designated safe zone outside), we
      set up the small makeshift altar where her body was melted down to drip into the soil. As I
      watched her preserved corpse melt I didn’t really feel much of anything, and surprisingly, in the
      moment, that bothered me. I talked with Luna a lot later that night and barely got any sleep.
  
      As we were heading back to bed, curiosity struck me and I wondered what would happen if I
      asked other soldiers the same question that got Garty so riled up. So I took a separate path
      from Giep and sought out the weakest or most innocent looking Indormas, to satiate myself. All
      three times I asked, it caused a gunfight to erupt between ten gangs in total across all three
      gunfights. Not wanting to get Giep or myself killed early, I simply did my best to avoid the
      fighting and went to bed early to contemplate my emotions.
  
      On the fourth day, I visited the forge in order to take up Shuil on his offer to see what they offer
      down there. Walking into the room I was told to go to, my first thought was that this must be any
      kind of metalworkers wet dream. Giant rooms dedicated to carefully organized machinery that
      was lined up according to purpose and manufacturer spread as far as the eye could see. I was
      almost surprised by the organization, especially since Giep, Illfer, and I had to spend a solid
      fifteen minutes trying to find our assigned beds each night due to the chaos of the Bed Wars.
      Then again, this was probably the only other passion most of the Indormas had that wasn’t
      spilling the blood of their enemies. It was like an art festival for those who dealt in death, and I
      found myself at the center of it. I found Shuil at the stand he told me about the other day and he
      gave me a pretty good tour of the place. A lot of weaponry here is commissioned by each
      individual soldier if they don’t make their weapons on their own. It’s actually pretty rare, but
      some soldiers who are less creative tend to mostly copy others’ commissions and even then, it’s
      often due to them liking the others' ideas and basing their own weaponry off of that. It made me
      think about art in a certain way, people making their own beautiful pieces based off of their own
      unique experiences and inspirations. A lot of wondrous, ugly, amazing, horrible, awesome,
      disgusting displays that made me feel emotions that had gone rusty centuries ago. It was
      genuinely a wonderful experience.
  
      Regardless, due to the massive size of the soldiers here and their strength, weapons are made
      BIG and I mean REALLY BIG. Shoulder mounted cannons with spidery appendages that rip
      anything in proximity to shreds, batons that drop explosive particles everywhere it’s swung,
      miniguns that fire in 20 different directions at once, and rifles that simply erase whatever it fires
      at. Shuil gave me a good look at all of this and more, and even allowed me to participate in
      some demonstrations. I was so distracted that I spent and enjoyed the entire day there, until she
      showed up.
  
      Just as I was leaving, I passed by Garty who gave me the most vicious stare anyone here had
      ever given me, which was pretty impressive considering just how many people I’ve passed by in
      the past four days.
  
      “Meet me in scrimmage room #87 two days from now.” Was all she said to me before she tried
      skulking away into the forge like some kind of skulker. Before she could fully walk away I
      grabbed her arm. In the short time it took her to acknowledge my touch, for her to stop
      completely, for her to look at me, and for her to bat my arm away. A giant chunk of flesh was
      torn off of my hand and my lower arm. I was so caught up in the conversion that the injury left
      me nonplussed (don’t worry I patched up after sheesh).
  
      “What for?” I asked tensely.
  
      “You’ll see.” She then spat at my face (Hot. Literally. Not the attractive kind. It burnt like hell. It
      definitely left a scar) before turning away from me.
  
      “Hold on! I screamed before grabbing her arm again, like a dumbass expecting a different result.
      “About what I said in the jai-”
  
      She immediately flared up in anger and grabbed me and pulled me close to her face again. “You
      will never mention what you said back there. Got it?” The only emotion I saw in her eyes was
      fear poorly masked by anger, I simply gave her a slow nod in response. “Good.” Was all she
      said before letting me go and turning back and going into the forge.
  
      I shrugged the encounter off as best as I could before walking back to my bed wondering about
      what kind of commission I might order if I could get one, since I had so much inspiration
      throughout the day. I also started to feel more tired than usual, which I should have questioned
      at the time.
  
      On the fifth day, I simply wandered around Sodom until I found Giep eating lunch in the
      abandoned forgotten corner of the least crowded cafeteria at the time. We tried our best to learn
      the routines of the nastier members of Sodom so we could avoid as many fights as possible.
      Luna excelled at watching people and observing their patterns so I would simply let her do the
      people watching while I noted other interesting aspects of Sodom that would not be interesting
      in a journal like this. I wagered we would have a few minutes before the both of us would have
      to split, due to some gang deciding to take up our space. I approached her not even bothering
      to take a meal since the mold gathering in some of the corners was more appetizing than the
      nutrient packs they gave out there.
  
      “Do you think Illfer has told the other Fixers about what we’ve seen so far?” Luna asked right
      before I had even sat down.
  
      “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, I hope she’s told them everything so she can help with getting
      the two of us back so we can bring back some of our samples.” I had already stuffed whatever
      environmental samples I collected from the outside and Illfer’s body into the Layers and was
      hoping to retrieve them before we left in case they were lost in transit, because I honestly didn’t
      have a full understanding of how my connection to the Layers would fare between here and the
      outside.
  
      Giep giggled, “Who knows, she’s had so much time to record and relay what she saw so maybe
      she’s telling them about how you drooled on me on the first night after thrashing about so
      much.” I elbowed her in response.
  
      Luna spoke up after laughing, “Regardless, we need to talk about the plan on getting out of
      here.”
  
      I nodded, “Agreed, they definitely won’t extend their hospitality for much longer. We should
      probably think about leaving tomorrow morning or the day after.” Unfortunately, my secret plan
      did not work.
  
      Luna actually spoke up in response, “I’ve been spreading myself across the base listening in on
      conversations, and I’ve found that in two days, we’ll be given equipment and armor before we’ll
      be presumably forced into whatever positions they give us. An official induction ceremony along
      with orientation (or whatever you would call that in this hellhole) will be held for us and everyone
      else starting that morning. Therefore, it would be best for us to leave that morning! It’s likely we
      should head home afterwards, so we can record and gather as much information as possible.”
      She stole that last part from me, although the idea of staying here an extra day was hers. I didn’t
      get a full insight into why she wanted to talk to Garty until later, but I didn’t have anything
      concrete to talk her down.
  
      “That sounds alright to me. Although, tell me, what have you two found while exploring so far.” I
      told her everything we had seen in the past few days, from the forge, to the defense guns, to the
      routines Luna discovered, The cranky captain who probably wanted me dead, the sick-ass
      haunted basement and the annoying loud rave the Bulfrens have down there every night
      (unfortunately, that's a story for another day), and even the differing bathrooms found on the
      lower floors for different species that Luna told me about.
  
      “...And that’s when we bumped into Gartorios before the day ended.”
  
      “Hmm, interesting.” She said before going into a long tirade about their anatomy, food, dialect,
      and other interesting things. I’ve omitted most of this since anyone can read about this in the
      notes from our first expedition and it isn’t really all that interesting for my story, (See Expedition
      000001: The Negative Layers for these notes) but I wanted to include something she said that
      would be important for this journal.
  
      “...But the most interesting part of the Indormas is that they are a culture built around violence. I
      couldn’t deduce exactly where it came from, although it’s likely from the hostile nature of this
      place, but it’s gotten to a point that it encompasses most of the people’s entire being. See, even
      the most popular hobby amongst them is building new weapons and forming gangs to kill their
      own people! It’s just an obsession at this point. Although the major tragedy is that they don’t
      really have a choice. Their lives have surrounded themselves with so much violence that’s just
      normal for them, a common part of their day that they don’t even feel the revulsion that we do.
      And all of that is such a shame, they are a wonderful and interesting people and it’s sad to see
      so many succumb to something so horrible.”
  
      Trying to ignore how much this conversation was suddenly and weirdly starting to unease me for
      some reason, I pulled her attention to the pack of The Benjulfrie that just wandered in. “That’s
      very interesting, but it seems like we gotta scram soon. Oh by the way, I may have an idea for a
      plan to bust us out of here. I would explain in more depth, but unfortunately I think it’s time for us
      to go.” She nodded and we all shuffled out of there. I spent the rest of the day wandering around
      talking with Luna to forget that feeling like I was being called out back there.
  
      On the sixth day, Luna annoyingly reminded me that I was to meet with Garty today, although
      we both didn’t know what time so we just headed there immediately. When we reached the
      room there she was, in the center with some large metallic box that had a sling on one of its
      corners that she was making repairs on. It was probably her weapon.
  
      “Hey there Garty, I’m hoping you called us for a warm meal and some nice tea.” I said, trying to
      believe it myself.
  
      “Us? And what the hell is tea? Whatever, I wanted to ‘talk’ to you about what a lying shitbag you
      are.”
  
      “Pardon?” I knew going down here she was gonna try to hurt or kill me, but I was hoping to at
      least talk a little, and I’m starting to doubt that would actually happen.
  
      “Your induction is tomorrow, and not only have you been avoiding your optional training
      sessions but you also made a miserable performance at the test. I don’t think you're cut out for
      the First Guard.” In her defense, those practice sessions did sound interesting. In our defense,
      we’re all nerds, who have better things to do. Not sure about the other complaint though.
  
      “I don’t think so either.” I admitted, with maybe a sliver of hope that she won’t get herself killed
      by me.
  
      “None of us care what you think, you're stuck with us anyway. That test is a fucking atrocious
      metric for the skills we desperately need, regardless of how dangerous a Pemuli is.” At this
      point her box hit the ground with a loud thus and was expanding, revealing the outlines of guns
      and shields. It was a portable artillery position. “So I figured I could test you myself, and if not I
      could put you out of your misery before I go on to your little friends.” The box had now
      completely transformed into a fully functional artillery set that could substitute for an entire
      battalion. A bigass 30x30x10 box of fuck-you.
  
      I said my next words calmly without giving her an inch. “Now listen. I don’t know if you're being
      genuine or if this is about what I said in the jail cell, but-.” Gunfire suddenly erupted from her
      construct and the third shot fired went straight through my heart before I could finish my
      sentence.

  
     Time suddenly crawled to a snail's pace as the bullet passed through me. I was still trying to
     comprehend what the hell had just happened, when my heart gave out. The consequences of
     my heart having a new unwanted hole in it hit me pretty fast. It became harder to breathe, I
     started coughing up blood, I started feeling nauseous, there was chest pain, and my body
     started locking up, typical signs of heart failure. Within a second of the heart exploding as I
     began to fall backwards, one of the automatic response systems in my Wireframe took effect,
     five wires shot out from under my armpits and plunged into the bullet hole where my heart had
     been hit. One of the wires plugged the hole while the other four went to work getting the heart
     beating again. Before I knew it, I could function normally again and in two seconds right before I
     tipped over I was back to normal, or as normal as I can be.
     
     The first order of business was getting out of the line of fire. The solution was hopping into the
     Layers which was a terrible idea, because when I did, I found myself surrounded by darkness.
     
     Well the plan was already terrible off the bat since I didn’t actually know what stepping into the
     Layers in the Negative Layers would do and I already told my other coworkers that I wouldn’t
     test what happened until a later expedition. Oh well.
     
     The only visible thing in the Layers there was a strange glowing tentacle that encircled me and
     cast so much light that it threatened to blind me if I looked for too long even with the protective
     sunglasses I always kept stored away in the Layers. I couldn’t tell where the tentacle began and
     where it ended, due to how bright it was and I noticed that as soon as I took a step it began to
     tighten. So instead of standing around like an asshole, I decided it would be wiser to position
     myself behind Garty with the ample space the tentacle’s little hole provided and pop back in.
     
     As I did so, I stood behind Garty who looked incredibly frightened by my disappearance and
     was looking in every direction, while trying and failing to keep her composure. Which was very
     strange, I meant to step into a Layer that slowed down time so my walk would look as if I had
     simply teleported from her perspective, but that clearly didn’t happen since I seem to have
     blipped out for a bit longer. I noted that the Negative Layers may have a strange effect on my
     own connection to the Layers (literally wrote it in my notes on the spot I'm an idiot).
     
     Quickly, Garty hit some inputs on something on her wrist, causing some of the guns on the back
     of her weapon to activate and point directly at me. Now, I was only about four meters away from
     her so it wasn’t too hard to just create an explosion beneath my feet and jump over the firing line
     of the guns. Unfortunately they were really well made and they followed me with relentless
     precision. Luna expanded and blanketed the space below my feet, catching thousands of bullets
     during my descent. As I was falling, her blanket disappeared as a very confused Garty stood
     beneath me.
     
     Now I’m not a great writer so this next part might be a bit difficult for me to describe, but I
     hooked one of my legs around her neck, fell further below her so I was hanging from her neck
     upside down, then used my weight to throw her head into the ground outside her mobile gun
     emplacement. Much to my surprise the gunfire immediately stopped, and all of a sudden, the
     arena was dead silent. Her weapon, whatever it was, must’ve been connected to her mind and
     now that she was very unconscious she can’t control it.
     
     It took a bit of tinkering, but I eventually found a control panel of some sort and with help from
     my translator, I was able to figure out the controls to deactivate it and get it to fold back into its
     case. You guys have probably already gotten a peak into her weapon, but from what little I’ve
     seen, it’s depth and the many options for different scenarios is impressive and terrifying.
     
     It took a hot minute for Garty to wake up but by the time she was, she was lying supine with me
     seated on her chest to pin her to the ground. I cracked a wide smile and said, “Morning,
     handsome.”
     
     Garty was surprisingly well composed for someone who just got choke slammed into the floor,
     but she did a poor job of hiding her pupils dilating as she first laid eyes on me. “It is hardly
     morning anymore.” Her familiar scowl placed firmly on her face again.
     
     I snickered before relaxing a little, “I suppose not, still I’m glad to see you mostly unharmed after
     I kicked your ass. Now, would you kindly explain what the fuck that was? When people try to kill
     mehere they usually don’t hold a conversation about why. Oh and don’t bother trying to use
     your weapon, it’s deactivated.”
     
     She stared daggers at me for a bit. Then she tilted her head to look at her weapon, probably to
     check if I was telling the truth. Strangely, after a brief second she put her head down before
     saying, “Get off me first and I’ll think about it.” So I obliged and took a seat next to her rather
     than on her. After a second, she sat up facing the opposite wall from me. I know I gave a rough
     estimate of her size earlier in the journal, but words can’t do justice to explain just how freaking
     huge this bastard is.
     
     “Hey, before I answer any of your questions, can you answer some of mine?”
     
     “Sure, fire away.”
     
     “How the hell did you appear behind me?”
     
     “I stepped out of reality.”
     
     “Bullshit.”
     
     “Do you have a better explanation? Look, I could fully answer this question, but you don’t look
     like you know enough quantum physics to wrap your head around this, so just drop it for the
     time being.” She huffed but seemed to concede for the time being.
     
     “What’s with the wires coming out your chest?”
     
     “It’s to keep my heart functional.”
     
     “You guys only have one?” She then shook her head. “Oh whatever, alright, what’s with that
     black sludge that popped out of you before you knocked me out?”
     
     “That was Luna.” For the first time since the jail cells, she was properly bamboozled.
     
     “Who?”
     
     “Luna, my wife, the eldritch being living in my eye.”
     
     “How are you still walking with those wires sticking into your chest?”
     
     “Oh that’s just to keep a fatal injury nonfatal.” She seemed to be properly exhausted now.
     
     “Whatever, just give me your question.”
     
     “I asked a few people here if they wanted to leave after I asked you at the jail cells and all of
     them tried to kill me. Why did you hesitate when I asked that question, but everyone else just
     got mad? I mean, I do have an escape plan if you really want to get rid of me as badly as you
     did before, but still I’m curious.” I had a lot on my mind from the last few nights and I figured
     trying to talk to the one person who wouldn’t immediately try to blow me up might get some
     answers.
     
     Although a part of me kind of regretted asking as she shrunk inward a little and started to look
     around with an anxious look on her face. “Do you know if we’re alone?”
     
     Fun fact: Sound carries an infinitesimally small amount of mass and since it’s constantly moving
     around it is constantly gaining or losing speed meaning it has an acceleration. Thus, sound is
     also a force, and seeing as I can manipulate forces and how they behave around my body by
     using the Layers, it means I can use them along with some complex math to detect where
     people are.
     
     “Nope, nobody’s nearby. I checked before I came in.” She let out a sigh of relief, clearly having
     believed my little white lie before continuing.
     
     “...I fucking hate this place. I don’t want to be added to the massive pile of corpses that pile up
     everyday. I don’t want to have to report to my awful father every day. I don’t want to have to
     partake in the extensive and disgusting reproduction program. Everyone here is so fixated on
     violence that I feel alone. This land has forever tainted the people I call kin and made them into
     monsters and I refuse to let them take my life. The only time I ever feel… I guess safe, is when
     I’m making weapons or stuck in my room all alone. Fucked up if you think about it… and I’m
     realllllly hoping that you weren’t lying about having an escape plan.” She leaned towards me
     with a threatening look in her eye.
     
     I raised my hands in a poor attempt to calm her down, “Of course I do and I‘m glad you're on
     board. I just needed to gauge your actual interest… But you do know it’ll be very dangerous and
     you’ll have to rely on and trust me a lot?”
     
     “I’m more than aware.” She said sulkily.
     
     “Good, well the plan is to use a weapon I have to kill most of the people at the ceremony
     tomorrow, excluding us. It’d be a bit hard to show you the weapon right now. There will also be
     multiple remote explosives around the outer walls of the base that will give us enough chaos to
     escape. And yes, I checked the records on what security routes looked like on past recruitment
     ceremonies so we should be good.” She looked like she had way too many questions so I
     figured I still needed to elaborate. “Yes, the place I’m bringing you is safe, it’s a sort of safe
     house far far away from here. Me and the other two were the only survivors on an expedition to
     plot out some unexplored lands. I promise you we are much more peaceful than the Indormas
     and you can live a peaceful life amongst us with plenty of materials to make weapons with
     without any pressure from us to make weapons for our people. No, you don’t need any
     preparations done, I will set up the explosives myself and have already mapped out an escape
     route. You can bring anything you can carry. Any questions?” As I finished, she opened her
     mouth to ask a question. “And yes, your father may be one of the casualties.” She closed her
     mouth immediately nodding to let me know her questions were answered, her expression was
     impossible to read.
     
     I didn’t really fully understand why I was so open to having her come along. Judging from
     everything I had seen, I really shouldn’t trust her, and it’s not out of the question that one of
     these Indormas may be a master manipulator. However, the look she gave me back in the cells
     stuck in my mind. The most deceptive of people couldn’t pull off a look that desperate, even if
     they tried. I don’t even know if the Fixers will take her in, I would really have to bank on her
     being the first member of the Fixers from The Negative Layers to get the higher ups who decide
     who is let in to let her stay. Well, assuming she’d want to stay. Theirs also the whole, convincing
     Giep and Luna to let her come with us.
     
     Still, the entire moment gave me another question to bother her with. “Hey, by the way, why the
     hell did you attack me?”
     
     “You said only one question.”
     
     “I’m a compulsive liar on Tuesdays. But you don’t really have a reason to not answer my
     question.”
     
     She sighed and was probably wishing for anybody else to get her out of this hellhole. “Well… I
     thought your plan was bogus and figured getting rid of you would get rid of my hesitation on
     staying, which would make my father go back to just ignoring me as their youngest since my
     hesitation was starting to show… terrible plan and I’m sorry for trying to kill you… and while I’m
     at it, I’m sorry for Illfer’s death too.”
     
     “First of all, I’m pleasantly surprised you knew Illfer’s name, but you're not sorry for her death
     and you don’t need to pretend to be, still I very much appreciate the sentiment. Second of all,
     I’m not upset, you’re not the first person to fail miserably at killing me, but keep in mind for the
     future, assuming you have much of one, that you should face your problems instead of burying
     them out of sight.”
     
     “The future huh?” She tilted her head down after slowly letting words roll off her tongue. A
     painful reminder that she may not be able to make it out alive. I figured lightening the mood may
     help her out of her depression.
     
     “Wanna meet Luna?” All the sadness in her eyes was replaced with bewilderment as she turned
     to stare at me.
     
     “Y-You mean your… wife. Right? Wait what’s a wif-”
     
     “Yep, I’ve been testing out a headphone set that can allow communication with her. It’s only
     about 95% of the way through final testing and just needs some final touches but it should be
     safe to use.“
     
     She raised an eye (no, not an eyebrow) at my offer, “May I ask why you're doing this?”
     
     “You seemed stressed by what’s to come so I figured I’d give you at least something to relax.
     Even if it isn’t much.”
     
     She grumbled something offensive under her breath before saying, “Fine. I’ll hear what she has
     to say. Maybe she’ll be more pleasant to listen to than you”
     
     “Thank you.” I said as I pulled out the experimental device.
     
     The headphones were shaped around my head, but this seemingly shallow design choice was
     accommodated with an elastic headband that could allow the headphones to fit on any head,
     while the ear cushions themselves could be expanded and retracted for the same purpose.
     While we did draw up designs for implants, they were still a few years out from the prototypes
     being finalized for field use before my expedition here began.
     
     On the right ear cushion, was a circular piece of glass that contained a disk of Luna’s slime
     which circled around a microchip that was impossible to see from the outside. Another
     component that was impossible to see was the tiny circular pocket that contained a string of
     said slime that connected to her portal that I held in my eye socket. That string definitely didn’t
     trip up a lot of people in testing.
     
     In order for this to work, the wearer would have to speak into the mic that was attached to the
     left ear cushion, this would feed wavelengths to the microchip in the disk, which would then
     translate this information to Luna through the string and this microchip had a very complex
     program that would translate whatever speech Luna sent through, back to the right earpiece
     which would again be translated by the microchip, to the language of the speaker.
     
     After explaining all of this while explaining more technical details and questions from Garty, she
     finally put on the headset before letting out a tentative, “Hello?”
     
     Soft inaudible garbles came from the right earpiece causing Garty to blush softly. After which
     she briefly turned the mic away to say to me specifically, “Her voice is really cute.” Which earned
     a chuckle out of me. After another moment she responded with, “Um, yeah, she’s been a real
     pain in the ass, but her letting me in on her plan was really meaningful… Oh fuck no… What do
     you mean I’ll warm up to her?” I chuckled as I took a blind guess as to what they were talking
     about. Ultimately, I decided to give the two space, figuring that it would be for the best,
     especially since I wanted Garty to relax a little and even then she kind of seemed to have
     forgotten about my existence. I took a seat in the corner and started a podcast in my interior
     headphones as I drifted off into a nap.
     
     About an hour later, Garty was shaking my shoulders, probably a lot more violently than she
     needed to. “Hey, we’re done talking. Are you enjoying your nice nap over here?”
     
     “Yeah, emphasis on ‘was’.” She rightfully kicked me in the face for that one. “So didya enjoy
     your conversation?”
     
     “Yeah, she was a lot more pleasant to talk to than you.”
     
     “Understandable, she’s always been a gentle one, and far more thoughtful of other people than I
     am.” A lull in the conversation passed.
     
     “So… How did you two end up together? You two just seem like such vastly different people that
     it’s weird seeing you two together. And apologies if it’s private, she always kept the conversation
     focused on me. Probably was trying to relax me like you were.”
     
     “Mm, no need to apologize, but it’s a pretty long story. So to make a long story short, she was
     going to be forced into a life that she didn’t want and so I stepped in at the last minute to prevent
     that. Us being connected like this are the consequences for my lateness. This headset is kind of
     my attempt to let her get more of a taste of the outside world since she insists on sticking with
     meand letting me do what I want. Even though my knowledge of the technology is poor. That’s
     the REALLY short version but maybe I’ll give you the rest of the story some day.”
     
     She had perked up when I mentioned my knowledge of the headset’s technology. “Say, did you
     make the headset?”
     
     “Oh, well most of it. I’ve been learning from experts in the field and trying to set something up for
     her for a few years at this point.”
     
     “Oh, do you build your own stuff too?”
     
     “Well, I do work in a vastly different field, quantum mechanics, but I do indeed build my own stuff
     for my research.” Her eyes seemed to glow at my response and she seemed to want to delve
     deeper into that, but before I could let her I needed to ask her a question that’s been on my
     mind since we started seriously talking. “Why do you trust me?”
     
     She quickly put her more care-free side away to put her soldier facade back on, but she did a
     poor job of securing the mask. “Well… I don’t have anyone else to trust… and my conversation
     with you tonight has made me realize I can’t take this anymore-”
     
     Our nightly curfew alarm suddenly interrupted her, which just made her depressed.
     
     “Oh… I guess that’s it for today…”
     
     “Yep… well you know the plan, I’ll see you at the commencement tomorrow.” I said as I waved
     myself off, but was stopped when she abruptly grabbed my wrist (which again, tore my skin off,
     which admittedly didn’t bother me but was still really inconvenient).
     
     “Um…sorry if this is awkward but uh… do you want to sleep in my bed tonight? Um, just for
     safety, you know since I’ve heard some of the gangs were planning a hit against you. Not for
     any uh… other reasons…” It was abundantly obvious to me that this was the most she had
     opened up in a long time, if she ever had opened up to someone like this before. She really
     needed this moment of vulnerability and was definitely going through a lot internally in the
     moment, so from my perspective, it would have been pretty cruel to turn her down. Besides, I
     really was starting to warm up to her. Although I will say her lie was pretty shit.
     
     “Sure, lead the way.” And she did, down deeper into Sodom than I had ever been before where
     the pipes got thicker and the guards seemed nastier. Low-level grunts like me weren’t allowed
     down here because they reserved the safer part of the base for older soldiers (Shuil just liked to
     chat with the grunts to pass the time). After a long walk, we arrived at a luxurious room, whose
     luxury was completely ruined by the mess of weapons, scrap, and workbenches that cluttered
     the entire room, bar the big comfortable bed in the center of the room. There really wasn’t
     anything you could do about hygiene here so the two of us simply laid on opposite sides of the
     bed, and yeah that might seem like an uncomfortable arrangement but for those who aren’t
     soldiers, lemme tell you, I have slept in far worse places. Well aside from how egregiously off
     balance the bed was, it was alright.
     
     Thinking back on our time together, it was pretty obvious she’s been scared shitless by what I
     said. How do you make the jump with so little warning? It’s rough and arguably, having time to
     think on things makes it rougher, but even so, she’s about to face the biggest day of her life
     tomorrow that could even end in her death if she isn’t careful. At that point, how could I abandon
     her?
     
     “You were being honest with her, right?” Luna said.
     
     “Of course, you were thinking the same thing I was right? About how vulnerable and scared she
     is?”
     
     “Yeah… I hope she gets out safe.”
     
     “Me too.”
     
     “...Hey, sorry for dragging you along down there… I really just wanted to learn about the
     Indormas hierarchy…”
     
     “You're okay, ya big lovable nerd,” I said hoping I could drift off to sleep until Garty said
     something that caught me off guard.
     
     “Hey, uh sorry if this is a weird request, but can I hold you for tonight?” I wanted to keep her
     safe, but I also needed to look out for myself and unfortunately, being touched by strangers was
     a no from me. I even had to take time to warm up to Luna after the initial high of our union wore
     off.
     
     “I’m sorry, but I’m gonna have to refuse that request.”
     
     “Oh…” She said dejectedly, and that was that.
     
     Or it would’ve been if she hadn’t rolled over about half an hour after she cried herself to sleep.
     
     Luna spoke up one last time that night, “Uh, do you need help with that?”
     
     Yes, being held was deeply uncomfortable to me and made it hard to sleep, but it was hard to
     say no when she was shaking so much. “No, I think I’m good.”
      

  
      I snuck out of Garty’s tight clutches about a half an hour before the usual wake up time. Having
      a built-in alarm comes in handy sometimes. Anyway I headed down to the forge to ask Shuil if
      he could help me make some C4, or rather I gave him specifications on explosives similar to C4,
      since I have no clue if C4 could be made in the Negative Layers. But before I did I thought about
      the implications of creating something that originated outside the Negative Layers and if it would
      have any ramifications. Then I said fuck it because I had been blown up by C4 enough times in
      my past to worry about it being deleted from existence forever.
  
      Now you might be asking, “Alex. Why are you getting more C4 when you have a giant bag of it
      in the Layers?” Well you see, I’m worried I’ll put a hand in there only for me to lose that hand if I
      do so so how about no.
  
      “These would be some pretty hefty explosives. It seems from the calculations alone even a
      couple of grams could level several blocks of the base. Um, why do you need these built? If I
      may ask.”
  
      “I saw a big ass creature while out by the walls and I wanted to hunt it down before I get
      inducted. Could you make it for me in a few hours?” He might seem aged and a bit slow, but his
      eyes narrowed briefly as he looked down at my small frame. He definitely saw through my lie.
  
      “I’ll have them ready in about two hours. I hope you have a good hunt.” He said, briefly before
      turning back to start on his new project. What I wouldn’t learn until after we got out is that he
      had apparently seen me and Garty heading back to her room last night and was already well
      aware of her hatred of her home. I guess he was just curious about how things would go down,
      or he had a soft spot for a fellow weaponsmith and maybe trusted me a little more than he
      should have. At least all of this was according to Garty. Oh well, I wasn’t one to look a gift horse
      in the mouth.
  
      The reason for the plan requiring such an explosive exit was actually quite simple. According to
      the more rude soldiers of Sodom, Giep and I would be shot on any attempts to run away. So just
      walking out the door wasn’t an option, I needed not only an exit they couldn’t suspect but also a
      distraction so that some of the creatures outside the walls could get in and cause some more
      chaos for our escape, which would also distract the guns. It was a shit plan, or more accurately
      a poorly thought out plan, but with the security here and our need to research splitting up our
      time a better option didn’t present itself. There was the haunted basement and the labyrinth
      within but I dreaded ever interacting with or conceiving of Bob ever again.
  
      Originally, I was planning to just hop myself, Illfer, and Giep into the Layers and run, but Garty
      and the thing I saw in the Layers complicated that. Besides, if staying in this Layer is my best
      option, then doing something to get the guns’ attention off of us is our best bet.
  
      I spent the next two hours just patrolling the outer walls, looking for small spots to stick enough
      C4 into to penetrate the walls. As for how much was needed, all it took was a few bangs against
      the walls of pipes after waiting for any nearby patrols to leave to confirm if a spot was thin
      enough to have a decent sized hole be put into it. Of course, this required using the Layers to
      measure the thickness and durability of the walls (or at least it’s approximation with all the pipes)
      before running the calculations and guessing at what the results would be. However, it was a
      pretty minimal use of the Layers so I figured it was okay, just like with the sound proximity test
      earlier.
  
      I was able to find three spots before I had to double back to the forge to grab the C4. Shuil gave
      me an affirming and knowing nod before I would say my final goodbye. Using the remaining time
      I had before the induction I was able to plant the C4 and hook it up to my remote detonator
      which I had grabbed from the Layers when I was formulating this plan in my head a few nights
      ago. It was a simple rectangular device with four large square buttons on one side and a single
      primer on the other side that I had recently built since I decided I wanted a dedicated detonator
      of my own instead of just using a burner phone. I connected all three to singular buttons before
      stashing the detonator and heading to the bunks to grab Giep for the induction.
  
      Well, the plan was to grab her right before the induction ceremony so she could look at the Front
      Guard barracks, but when I pulled away the sheets on the bed we all unwillingly shared and saw
      her chopped up remains were all that was left I decided to just head straight to the ceremony.
  
      As I approached the place I was told to go, several soldiers surrounded me and forced me into
      some armor that resembled the set of armor every other soldier in the base had, except it was fit
      to my size. The armor had the same industrial gray variety of colors that the pipes had and was
      very bulky, obviously a preference was made for defense over speed. The drastic change in
      scale from their usual armor also meant that the contours around the suit were clunky and made
      moving awkward, so I had to use the Layers to compensate. The armor itself was also jagged
      and was definitely rushed, I definitely got a few scratches just from running my hands over it.
  
      Before I could ask how they got my measurements or what they would do about Illfer or Giep,
      they led me to the highest security door in Sodom I had ever seen. Why was it high security?
      Well give me a few sentences man, I gotta set the scene a little. The door was built of the
      strange ashy metal material that the pipes that made up Sodom were made of, except now they
      were a sizable rectangular slab of metal that split in half down down the middle and was just big
      enough to fit one of the Indormas. Except there was a gap in the part of the doorway that was
      facing us that allowed about a dozen pipes to extend up from halfway up the door to about eye
      level for the Indormas. Uniquely they all ended in 90 degree inverts that opened up outwards
      towards our side of the door. Thinking back on it I had never seen a pipe opening in the entire
      base until just this moment. Two of the guards stepped up to the pipes and screamed into them
      in a specific order, letting out ghastly shouts into one pipe opening at a time. My guess is that
      they were inputting some kind of code.
  
      Eventually the doors slid open abruptly and quickly and the two guards who inputted the code
      stepped to the side in a defensive stance. Allowing me and all the rest of the guards past the
      door which abruptly shut behind us. Inside of the room, a lot of rather intimidating soldiers stood
      in rows that faced away from the door and towards a podium on the opposite side of the room
      with an open path leading from the door to the podium. As I walked in they all turned to look at
      me. The podium had nothing besides its occupants and a staircase on the front with two guards
      stationed on either side of the stairs. Amongst the Indormas, there was a rather diverse
      collection of them. Their numbers included young people adorned entirely with gnarly scars that
      stretched across their entire bodies. They greeted me with wide, demented smiles that would
      scare even the most rugged of folk. As they got older their scars became more faded and their
      smiles dipped into frowns that were at least moderately intimidating, but still disturbing in their
      own way.
  
      However, the important part was who was standing on the podium. On the right side was Garty
      (hi), and on the very center of the podium was an Indormas who towered over her and I. The
      power they held with just their stature was enough to make just about everyone in the room
      jump if they just asked.
  
      As I approached the podium a voice like nails scratching against a chalkboard erupted from the
      tall being next to Garty, “Welcome new recruit, it seems you are our only survivor during the
      warm up period.” That was a strange way to welcome me, cutting to the chase, but I guess they
      want to move this along quickly.
  
      “Hi?” I said probably a little too timidly.
  
      “Come. Come. Let us begin the ceremony.” And so I came onto the stage at the back of the
      room. Eventually I stood in a triangle with my two stage goers. I stood facing to the right side of
      the podium, staring at Garty who had a steely resolve in her eyes. To my left was the imposing
      figure who looked out at the rest of the room.
  
      While standing there, Garty mouthed the words, “Where’s Giep?”
  
      “Dead.” Was all I mouthed back before the end of the conversation.
  
      “Alright, I’m ready.” I said, sounding more calm than I had in days.
  
      The important person cleared their throat and began. “Hello siblings, my name as, you know, is
      Garforine. I am here to present our army’s newest recruitsssssss, uh I mean recruit, who’s
      strength has allowed him to survive an entire week's worth of hostility that our recruits have
      been instructed to show him.”
  
      And suddenly almost everyone being such huge dickheads to us made a bit more sense.
  
      “A long long time ago, when the Infrastructure Primer was discovered as our people were on the
      brink of death, our civilization began a new age that brought us closer to greatness. Since then,
      we have made many great strides, including powerful weaponry, a command structure, Flem
      capture units, and a brand new recruitment program. While the recruitment program has been
      less than successful in the past few gind (translation: about 6.23 months), we finally have our
      first successful recruit since The Dawn of the Wyndfoll.”
  
      Well, that sounds concerning.
  
      “And now I would like to welcome the first, according to himself, human into our ranks…” She
      then walked to the top of the stairs and leaned towards a guard slightly off the podium to
      whisper. “Uh, what was his name again?” The guard whispered my name back to them before
      they turned back to the audience. “We would like to welcome our newest recruit, Alex, to the
      rank of 693rd of the First Guard.” As they said this, Garty approached me and placed a rather
      small and nondescript chevron on my shoulder, which was again made out of the same strange
      metal as the pipes, but had a slightly darker color.
  
      It kinda made me sad that I hadn’t noticed little details like these about the soldiers I passed.
      They do tell stories in some manner and knowing that I entirely missed that fact along with the
      effort some went through for their accomplishments because of their violence, a small part of me
      was actually slightly remorseful about what I was about to do. Only a small part though.
  
      This short and unpleasant speech was followed up by a loud and belligerent round of applause
      that shook the entire room. Which was to be expected after all, as It was probably a big day for
      a project that they’ve all been spending so much time on. If nothing, my “recruitment” is proof
      that this project has actual potential, even though to nobody’s knowledge, that proof will be
      useless pretty soon.
  
      “So, little one, do you have anything to say as a result of your recruitment to our people’s
      cause?” And this was the moment for me. Garforine at this point had walked to the front of the
      stage for more attention, but was now turned slightly towards me, now everyone except for
      Garty were on one side of the room from my position, my opportunity to revolt had been served
      up on a silver platter. I turned towards Garty and gave her a simple nod before stepping forward
      and putting in the first steps of my escape plan.
  
      Let me interrupt this moment with a Fun Physics Fact: Friction is a resistive force that occurs
      when two solid objects push or pull against each other. Friction also generates heat as most
      other physical processes do; however, it’s not enough heat to actually burn anything in most
      cases. There was once a hypothetical scenario I ran into where one could cook a chicken with
      just punches, which while realistically it is basically impossible, it is interesting that it is, in very
      specific conditions, possible. Now to not get too far off track, let’s say I clasped my hands
      together with the fingers interlocked, only one of my index fingers pointing out to the rest of the
      room. Then I pulled my index finger back as if pulling the trigger of a gun. Then I slipped the
      region between my fingers into some parts of the Layers, where friction forces can produce, let’s
      say, a hell of a lot more heat than usual. Then through another region that ignored Newton’s
      Third Pesky Law to prevent it from hurting me or Garty then launching it through another Layer
      to blast the heat forward.
  
      Nevertheless, after doing all of the stated things above but right before the blast, I responded to
      Garforine’s question with only a few words and a bit of a gleeful smile, “Ich werde euch alle zum
      Brennen bringen.”
  
      Then I pulled my index finger back as if pulling a trigger.
  
      A giant fireball erupted from my hands, shooting high above my head and pushing me back
      slightly from but a minor, inconsequential miscalculation. It immediately engulfed the room, a
      pained roar hit my ear for a brief moment, and I had to close my eyes in response to the heat’s
      proximity. The first thing that hit me was the smell. It doesn’t matter how many people I
      immolate, the smell of burnt corpses will always be revolting to me. The sounds of screaming as
      everyone realized what was about to happen also hit almost immediately after the smell, but it
      was cut out in nearly a second. What followed was the loud crash and rip as the fireball blew
      open the wall at the entrance. The sound of metal bursting, stretching and screaming coincided
      with the flames violently slamming through the wall and dispersing after traveling a few more
      meters. Then I opened my eyes to look at the carnage.
      
      The wall had indeed almost entirely been torn open, with very little of the door and the guards
      on the other side left, at least it wasn’t gonna be a problem getting out. Before me ash, charred
      bone, and burnt viscera were all that littered the floor. And god, the burnt meat of the Indormas
      was everywhere, on and in the walls, the ceiling, the floor, the remnants of the door, me, and
      Garty. A few in the corners and closer to the wall were still clinging onto life, only able to moan
      and cry as they stared at their blown off limbs and the remaining parts of their bodies. One tried
      to crawl away with only their top half remaining, their head hit the floor one final time as I
      continued surveying the room. Another just kept staring at his lost arm and looked like he was
      about to go into shock. Then my eyes turned to Garforine. They were nothing, but a pair of burnt
      boots stuck to the floor with some leg remains poking out of the top. Then I turned to Garty.
  
      She was, as one would expect, trying her best to keep herself together. She stared at the
      carnage with wide-eyed shock and had fallen to her knees, unable to pull her eyes away,
      especially from the sight of her father’s corpse.
  
      Out of fear of her getting scared at the last second, I didn’t tell her the full plan. Which was fair
      and unfair, the main problem on my end was always going to be pushing her through this
      moment. One of the hardest things for people in abusive environments to do is to leave
      sometimes, especially if they're not fully ready, the proverbial pulling off the band aid. I can’t say
      anything in regard to that topic other than that it sucks and in that moment, a hint of doubt
      creeped into the back of my mind. Would she be able to pull off that band aid? Can she be
      ready to leave? Will she turn her gun on me for what I did?
  
      Their was, of course, only one way to confirm my suspicions. In order to do that, I reached out
      my hand for her to grab and said, “Are you ready to get out of here?”
  
      There's no shame in being weak, in being unable to accept that there is a problem and moving
      forward to resolve it. I’ve known many people in the exact same situation she is in and I can’t
      really blame her for any choice she makes. All I know is that I’ll be sad if she turns back now
      and forces me to drag her along kicking and screaming.
  
      Her entire body shook as she turned her eyes to me. Her eyes were consumed by fear as she
      turned her gaze down to me. She hesitated, turning her head slightly away from me, she was
      contemplating something hard.
  
      Then after an eternity that took three seconds to pass, she turned back and took my hand in
      hers.

  
      Before we could make our grand escape, I pulled Garty up to her feet and pulled out my
      detonator. Sequentially and separately I pressed all three buttons that were attached to all the
      C4 I had planted, causing all of the explosives I had planted to echo throughout the facility.
      
      “What the hell are you doing Alex?” She shouted after the explosion rocked her out of her
      reverie.
      
      “I’m making a run for it with you!” I said before yanking her towards the newly expanded exit and
      running as fast as I could pull her.
      
      She kinda lagged behind as I hauled ass through the chaos. The Indormas ignored me for the
      most part as a majority of them were frantically running towards one of the three blast sites,
      while klaxons rang out throughout the entire base. I had already placed my bets on heading
      straight to the nearest new exit, which happened to be closest to the portal that I entered and
      will exit the Negative Layers from. As we ran, the sounds of claxons were joined by screams
      and battle while the Indormas’ numbers thinned and were instead replaced by bodies mangled
      in ways I still struggle to wrap my head around. Eventually, we came across an empty hallway,
      barring a shit ton of blood covering almost the entire floor. I had a bad feeling and told Garty to
      slow down as I slowed to a halt.
      
      Then it came around the corner.
      
      Well, stuttered would be a better word but that kind of doesn’t describe its movements very well.
      Do you know about lag in online games or streaming services? Yeah, that’s a better way to
      describe its movements as it stuttered forward and backwards in time at uneven intervals. As it
      walked, it would limp on legs one second while walking normally on said leg in another. Its spit
      dribbled out of its mouth and melted through the floor like acid. As for what it is, fuck if I know. It
      looked like a doberman dog (Or at least to my human eye it did) if its head was unusually
      bloated and its body sprouted six uneven tentacles that tried mimicking a dog’s legs. Notably,
      the front of its body dipped upwards while the back dipped downward due to the uneven length
      of its tentacle legs and its unusually large size for a doberman. Even more notable was that
      occasionally it’s head split open seven ways like a flower, except it wasn’t to reveal a mouth, it
      was to reveal a horrifying and non-doglike brain that was almost completely covered in
      unrecognizable fleshy tech. In front of the brain, in place of its eyes were two tiny entrances to a
      void I didn’t want to look into for too long. Easily the part that stuck out the most was the long
      (about 4 meters long) and thin sword sticking out of his forehead with the hilt pointing towards
      us. It seemed to bob up and down into and out of the wound, further damaging its head while
      also healing it in stutters somewhat similar to its movements.
      
      My “what the fuck” was interrupted by it charging at me without warning or even barking and
      lunge stuttering at me with it’s dog mouth wide open. In this instance, I could’ve easily used the
      Layers to dodge and kill the beast before it became a problem, but I hesitated. Truth be told,
      what I saw in the training room stuck in the back of my mind, while I was able to create a plan to
      temporarily use the Layers at an atomic level, doing so with my whole body still made doubts
      creep into my mind. So I simply didn’t use it.
      
      As a result I was completely defenseless when the beast bore it’s fangs at my neck. If it weren’t
      for The Instinct kicking in and moving my right arm in front of me and raising my right leg to kick
      the beast away I would have died there.
      
      “D-did you just kick a Dauber Demon across an entire hallway? And… did it bite you…” She
      sounded more afraid then in the moment after I eviscerated her dad.
      
      “I uh… I guess…” I said as I looked down at the wound and saw it writhe in time. The wound
      ebbed up and down, healing and digging in as it stuttered through time and space. In the middle
      of the bite wound as I looked down, I also saw something dig into my arm for only a brief
      second.
      
      I briefly looked back at the attack and saw a few details I was nearly too caught up in the
      moment to see.
      
      First of all, it pierced my skin with it’s tongue as it bit. Was that what had just burrowed into my
      skin? Will this kill me or something? Do I want to know? Too many questions, need to move
      forward.
      
      Second, the tentacle legs seemed to be sticking out of wounds where I suppose it’s legs once
      were. I don’t know if this information could be useful but it was good to know that it may be able
      to effectively regenerate limbs. By which I mean, good to know my gun and knife were
      effectively useless.
      
      Thirdly, holy mother of fuck was it heavy. If I weren’t well balanced, the bite would have shoved
      me to the floor.
      
      Looking back up at the creature that was now approaching us… no wait, it’s backing up… ah
      nevermind. A plan started to shape in my mind. Quickly I grabbed Garty’s hand again and
      started to back off to bring the plan to fruition.
      
      “Where the hell are you taking me? And what about your-” She blurted out angrily.
      
      I didn’t have time to respond as we rounded the bend and ran straight towards the breeding
      chambers. “Luna, I hope your memory of the layout is as good as you claimed it was.” She
      didn’t respond and a layout of the facility popped into my mind.
      
      We ran hard and faster than before, which unfortunately made me nearly slip up a few times
      due to Garty’s size as we rushed around the corner allowing it to gain on us fast. Acting quicker
      this time, I pulled out the Blood Gauntlet, nabbed some blood from a nearby Indormas corpse
      and grabbed the demon by its neck as it lunged at me before raising it into the air as it snarled
      and growled at me, my hand phasing through time with it. I jabbed a few blood spikes into its
      underbelly hoping to tear its guts out.
      
      Or I would have, if I didn’t make an unfortunate discovery about the Indormas circulatory system
      at that very moment.
      
      You see, blood is partially composed of plasma, which is what the gauntlet detects and uses, if I
      had to numb down the Blood Gauntlets’ functionality. It turns out the Indormas don’t have blood
      but some other liquid that provides either a similar or the same purpose! What is that liquid? We
      still don’t know! Now with that fun fact out of the way, we could get back to me being mauled to
      death which was interrupted by Luna shooting out of my hand. Although she shot out only
      enough to have a little space to push it off for us to get away.
      
      “Tired… Sleepy…” Was all she said before she went silent. I had felt some exhaustion from her
      last night, but I didn’t know it was getting this bad or why for that matter.
      
      Before running though, I pulled out my gun, swiped the ammo display, and aimed for one of the
      nearest legs and fired. The FMJ bullet went all the way through, tearing the leg off completely
      which was then promptly replaced by… some kind of meaty tripod leg, it somewhat resembled a
      chicken leg if I had to use a comparison I can understand. With another option now struck out, I
      continued racing towards the breeding chambers with Garty in tow.
      
      Inside the breeding chambers, there were a few Indormas on the other side of the room fighting
      a winning battle against more of the beasts but they seemed to not notice us or care about us.
      Eventually the Dauber Demon followed us into the room, keeping low to the ground as it- and
      it’s gone… oh wait it’s back again. We unfortunately weren’t able to put much reliable (I guess
      reliable is a hard thing to measure in this circumstance) space between us and the Demon, but I
      had just enough to do what I wanted to do. As we passed along one of the pools, it approached
      us quickly and bouncily, clearly not scared by my attempt to kill it earlier, assuming it could even
      be scared. As the beast approached, I clasped my fingers together away from the pool in
      preparation of what I hoped would at least get some heat off of us.
      
      And then it jumped at us, dog mouth bared again for another bite. I earnestly tried to detect a
      pattern to the demon’s stutters but there just wasn’t one. It was like punching a random number
      into a computer program, completely unpredictable no matter what, besides the reality of the
      result.
      
      So with no ability to predict, I swung my fists towards the pool with reckless abandon and hit the
      creature’s maw a little too close to the snout, but just enough to send it tumbling into the pool. It
      flailed itself around trying to stay above water. I pumped my fist in celebration only for my
      excitement to be cut short by it recovering, and grabbing onto the edge of the pool as it was
      about to jump out.
      
      Panic crossed my mind until the perfect solution presented itself right in front of me. The sword
      lodged in its head seemed to glow as I got close enough to bait the creature into swiping at me
      with one of its paws mid-climb, only for me to use the moment where it was recovering from the
      miss to grab onto the sword and push down. The beast, with about as much laggy resistance as
      I expected, completely bisected, letting me fall through the newly formed gap onto my bruised
      knees as blood and guts drenched me. However, before I could move on the creature’s insides
      caught my complete attention momentarily.
      
      Imagine every single thing you wouldn’t want in your body? Well every single one of them was
      in there: bugs, invasive tech, viruses, plant life, additional organs, limbs, faces, connections to
      other worlds, negative space, entropic scopes, eldritch feelers, and god so much shit I would
      rather summarize here.
      
      As the body fell, it continued lagging but only back and forth between the last few moments of
      its bisection, which is about as close to dead as it might get. After rising to my feet, I turned to
      face Garty who was, I guess to put it delicately, concerned. I put both thumbs up in the universal
      gesture of, ‘I’m going through hell right now and wanna be anywhere else but here but I’m going
      to pretend I’m good for your sake.’ Before we continued our escape from this wretched place.
      
      While Garty’s look from earlier concerned me, I was way too concerned with wracking my brain
      for any possible backup plans and other options to actually take the time to address it. I would
      soon find that my ignorance of Garty would become one of the many cruel lessons that the
      Negative Layers had to teach. The lesson being to always listen to other more experienced
      people when you get any kind of concerning wound.
      
      The Indormas seemed to be gathering together for a coordinated assault as we passed some
      groups of them, who were again, too focused on their own groups to see what we were doing as
      we ran past. As we got really close to the exit the number of Indormas, again, decreased. Which
      was strange upon first consideration. Wouldn’t you want as many as possible near the hole for
      the repair job? We found out the reason why when we rounded the bend and were greeted with
      a large gathering of Indormas who were wrong. They were missing major chunks of themselves,
      which included arms, legs, parts of their heads and chests. In their place were pieces of dark
      metal that were slotted in to fit exactly into the missing pieces of their bodies with folds that
      would bend along with their body’s movements. Inside the metal were spools of black wire with
      sharp screws that had a strange color at the tip that bent the eye of anyone who looked at it.
      The screws pulled the corpses along like puppets, all of them had listless and horrified
      expressions on their faces.
      
      After that brief sight, we quickly hid ourselves back around the corner. I snuck a brief glance
      back around the corner in the hopes that I might be able to gleam anything useful which only
      brought my attention to a machine near the far corner that wasn’t there when I planted the
      charge. It was as tall as the ceiling and almost perfectly rectangular with lots of odd geometry
      pushing out of the machine, presumably to fit in whatever strange machinery it had on the
      inside. Specifically, it had two dark square holes that were poking out of the same side at about
      the same height. One of the puppets tossed a body with the right arm torn off into one of the
      square holes and out of the other hole popped out the same Indormas, now with the right arm’s
      stump replaced with a new arm adorned with the strange machinery the other puppets had.
      
      My basic summary of The Negative Layers was that it was the garbage dump of existence. I
      took the interpretation literally, assuming it just held the things that shouldn’t exist. However, my
      time here was starting to reshape my understanding of the place. A lot more things were
      sentient and inherently dangerous than I had originally thought they would be. My definition of
      things that shouldn’t exist was originally more abstract by its nature but I was now attaining a
      new level of understanding. Standing about twenty meters from me is possible proof that the
      things here are capable of a coordinated attack on a weakened stronghold. While I know I
      haven’t explored too much of this land, I’m pretty confident in my assumption that this place is
      sentient to a certain extent. Well, not the location itself but the things it holds and manifests all
      seem to cohere towards a singular goal of total destruction, almost like they were listening to
      someone’s orders. The only question is to what end? Is it trying to destroy itself? The things
      occupying it? Invaders like me? I don’t know. It may be possible that this place isn’t just a dump
      for things that shouldn’t exist, but that it’s meant to hold things that could threaten existence
      itself or maybe it could have far more terrifying implications about our own existence. Maybe a
      better descriptor than “garbage dump” would be “containment facility”. Maybe I could coin the
      term “anti-existence” for this place?
      
      I turned my head back to face Garty to discuss what the hell our plan might be. “Do you have
      any more explosives?” Was her way of starting this totally normal conversation.
      
      “What? I mean, yeah but what for?” I tried thinking of how more explosives would help, but I
      couldn’t think of anything, after all the crater that would serve as our escape wasn’t a good
      indication that they would help much more than they already have.
      
      “I need you to teleport behind them and plant your explosives as traps, while I push them into
      the explosives with my Fireworks. I’ll wait until about three minutes after you teleport. Got it?” I
      stared at her for a second, thinking of all the strange things and behaviors I had seen.
      
      “How the hell do you know they’ll run away when you start firing.”
      
      “It’s standard protocol for dealing with The M-Rings. Push them into a trap since they typically
      run away from heavy weapons fire to gather and ambush people approaching them. It’s clear
      they plan to use the small hole to ambush people as they chase them out. It’s a perfect funnel.”
      First of all, there was more proof that this is a coordinated assault. Secondly, It sounded like a
      good plan on paper but there was one problem on my end. I did want to go along with her plan
      in the absence of any other ones, but I needed something to keep my confidence up.
      
      “Are you absolutely sure beyond any reasonable doubt this will work?” Her face scrunched up in
      anger in response.
      
      “Are you shitting me? I put my life on the line to get out of here with you and now you're
      doubting me?” My face winced in regret.
      
      The immediate embarrassment ate at me like a hungry hipule, and ate away at any momentum I
      had left. “I’m sorry. I just… nevermind… I trust you, give me about a minute before you start
      blasting okay?”
      
      “You have three actually.”
      
      I stood back up before taking a deep breath and closing my eyes as I popped into the Layers.
      With determination I came in to find… nothing out of the ordinary. Just the same hall I was
      standing in a moment ago, just now empty of Garty, the M-Rings, and whatever strange device
      they had. Strange. Without much thought I made my way to the outside about 50 meters away
      from the new exit before getting a good look at my surroundings as I popped back in. I was
      surrounded by the same purple landscape I had seen throughout the week as I looked beyond
      Sodom and before my arrival here. Beyond the walls, vast hills blanketed the landscapes and
      looming over the nearest one a single figure watched me. The base stood at the top of a hill
      beyond this new crater exit, and the current invaders who lazily guarded the hole that wasn’t
      there the last time I was out here.
      
      As I looked up the wall,I saw flashes and explosions coming out of the holes in the walls where
      the guns would be pointing in my direction, indicating that I was missing an epic battle up there,
      that likely occupied the ones operating the guns.
      
      After taking in my surroundings, I cautiously approached the puppets and found that I could get
      about 34ish meters to them before one of them raised their heads to look at me. I tried planting
      the rest of the C4 I had in a half circular shape around them, only stopping at the edges of the
      building. I wasn’t sure if this pattern would work, but I had limited time to work so I trusted in
      Garty’s plan and just did what I could. After the explosives were planted, I found a nearby rock
      at the bottom of the hill that would take the brunt of the explosions then sat and waited.
      
      On the dot of the three minute mark, the sounds of loud explosions and gunfire erupted from the
      hole. The puppets pushed, pulled, and yanked their way out in a frenzy clearly trying to sprint for
      the nearby rocks, debris, and any other cover they could find. Some had huge chunks of flesh
      and metal blown off, blood and tiny scraps of metal hitting the ground as they effortlessly
      sprinted for a hiding spot. Her guess that their ambush point was the hole seemed to be right. I
      tried waiting and clustering as many as I could at the explosives. After being sure I got as many
      of them lined up, I crouched under my cover and hit the detonator’s last button which had been
      set to the remaining explosives. After feeling the rumble, hearing the bang, and waiting a
      second I peeked back up to see… another horde running out.
      
      “Son of a…” I mumbled to myself as I hopped the rock to take care of the stragglers.
      
      Standing up, I took my revolver out and turned the ammo display on. As soon as the display
      flashed EXP/INC, I brought the revolver up and had just enough time to dodge a projectile that
      flew past my right shoulder and blew up behind me. I put explosive rounds up onto the horde as
      they descended upon me, their attempts at returning fire made completely useless by the
      awkwardness of their puppet strings and the change in height. Their gore and bits of shrapnel
      rained down on me soaking me to the skin and covering me in bruises and cuts.
      
      Eventually I had one bullet left and aimed the gun at the last one on the hill and fired. But all I
      registered in the intense moment was the click of the hammer hitting an empty cylinder. I know
      pauses in a moment like this in a story suck, but I need you to understand that I always keep my
      gun loaded. I’d even dug around in the Memory Vault Layer and my Ocular Video Camera to
      know exactly when I reloaded my gun between firing at the Dauber Demon and this point to
      write an accurate report. In the end, all I can say is that I have no idea what took that ninth bullet
      from my gun. It felt like in that instant when I pulled the trigger with no response like the
      Negative Layers itself was laughing at me.
      
      I tried pulling the revolver towards me to reload but was rudely interrupted by one of the wires
      from the last puppet going through my gun hand’s forearm and upper arm and into the rock I
      had just jumped. The sudden superficial injury knocked me off balance and sent me to my
      knees as the puppet bore down on me with some… big metal sphere… in its hands as it stood
      above me it pulled on a pin at the top of the sphere that caused the pin to pop up into the sky
      while attached to the sphere by a string to start flying up as a whistle noise began to grow
      louder with it’s increasing distance.
      
      I wasn’t in the mood to find out what was about to happen so I pushed myself onto my ass and
      attempted to push my body into the Layers. No dice. A sudden headache sparked across my
      mind and nearly gave me a migraine. So I tried an alternative.
      
      I used my foot and the Layers to kick him away, I only got a little dizzy this time. The dizziness
      caused me to nearly miss watching the Indormas and their weapon being sent flying into the
      upper portions of the base’s walls where it exploded into a series of inappropriate fireworks and
      what I THINK was confetti. Oh, and the spool snapped off the Indormas as it went flying which
      was neat.
      
      As I sat there, I yanked the spool out of my arm as Garty ran-slid down the hill towards me. As
      she approached she yelled, “Are you alright?”
      
      I had to jiggle the screw around in order to pull it out and as I yanked it out of my forearm, I
      shouted back, “Yeah, I’m okay.” As I stood, she ran up to me and inspected my wounds with a
      look of concern, I pulled away, “Hey, I can take care of this fast, besides we need to move fast.”
      
      She blushed hard after I said that and said “Y-yeah sorry, anyway where do we go from here?”
      
      “Hold up, I need to actually patch myself up.” After grabbing some basic medical equipment I
      took a look at the wounds, including the dog bite (which I had chosen to neglect until we got out)
      and noticed that all of them were bleeding a lot more than they should have been. And yes you
      can trust me on this, I tend to bleed a lot. Anyway after tying up my arms with malleable
      tourniquets, I took a look around. While doing so a giant flash came from a great beast on the
      horizon, illuminating the figure watching me on the horizon. It was just some naked loon
      slathering his body with toothpaste and slushie while staring at me tauntingly.
      
      I then turned to Garty, “Alright, we need to get to a portal about 4 kilometers in that direction.” I
      pointed off towards the portal’s general direction which was now beaming a yellow light into the
      sky, or what was left of the sky for some reason. “I noticed that you took a path that caused the
      creatures to leave you on your patrols. Do you know how we can find and use this path?”
      
      “Of course I do, I use the Helpet almost every guard cycle. Follow me, they can be hard to find if
      you don’t travel them regularly.” With that, she took my slightly less injured arm by the hand and
      led me through a very particular path similar to the one I first took on my way to this base. She also
      muttered to herself, asking what the fuck a kilometer was.
      
      As we began walking I noticed that I was feeling slightly fatigued. I pulsed a small check up on
      Luna and got no response. I didn’t have it in me at the time to actually investigate further which
      was strange. For some reason this exhaustion seems to hit anything new to the Negative
      Layers. Illfer later suggested that it was due to an airborne particle that affects the energy levels
      of physical beings that aren’t used to it for extended periods of time. But the theory lacks some
      ground due to the lack of any obvious evidence in her research. I have my own theories but they
      have far less ground than any of Illfer’s.
      
      As we walked, I took a look around to find what she was talking about when she said the path
      was hard to find with the untrained eye. Specifically, because having an idea of what to look for
      would help any future endeavors here. Eventually, I saw what it was about three-fourths of the
      way through the long mind-bending trip. Perfectly black, flat plus signs with curved edges
      floated in the air, pivoting to an axis where they couldn’t be seen every time I looked directly at
      them. Fortunately, the angles of the strange devices or the ways my eye worked, allowed me to
      see just a bit of them out of the corner of my eye. There was a peculiar beauty to them in their
      shape and function as well as the contrast with everything else here. I still can’t explain the
      feeling of elation I had when I saw them and whether or not it was from within or from the
      devices themselves. Regardless, I shook it off and carried on.
      
      Throughout my walk back to the portal I also got a proper chance to look around and see
      landscapes very similar to the one’s Shuil described. Perfectly flat grasslands that stretched on
      to infinity while the rest of the landscape curved. Corpses of giants that waved gentle
      pleasantries our way as they loomed closer. Towns that just floated over endless black holes.
      Endless purple hues that gave way to impossible colors as you looked further up. A lake
      absolutely lousy with creatures and things that would require entire novels to describe. And a
      nice little birthday party for Jeff, who just finished his yearly one thousand painful deaths. The
      landscape warped reality and perception simultaneously in a rapid assault of the senses. It was
      both beautiful yet had an intoxicating quality to it.
      
      Anyway, we eventually came to the brand new valley where the portal was now floating about
      150 meters directly above. As we arrived, the Helpet stopped its pathing almost as if they led
      directly here. It would’ve been cause for celebration were there not a strange crusty white
      humanoid, faceless doll floating about 30 meters off the ground directly below the portal.
      
      “Hey Garty.”
      
      “Yes, Alexandria?”
      
      “What is that?”
      
      “I have no idea.”
      
      As she said that, the floating doll took a step towards us. Thirty meters below, directly parallel
      with the doll’s right foot which it stepped forward with, a new crater appeared in the dirt as the
      doll finished its step. It took another step towards us, causing another crater to form and it was
      only then that I realized what it was doing as it hastened its movements.
      
      “Go left! It’s charging at us!” As Garty split off from me, I split off to the right. It quickly started
      charging faster and faster as dust-like particles kicked into the air and as it did so I realized that
      it was headed directly for Garty and not me as I had hoped it would.
      
      “Damn.” I muttered as I took out my revolver, crouched down and took a shot. Turns out, it’s
      hard hitting a floating and possibly angry doll(?) because the shot whiffed magnificently. Also my
      aim is just shit at any significant distance, but that’s not important or pertinent at all.
      
      Despite being a good five meters off, it had an, I guess, effect. The bullet hit something. It
      seemed to just hit empty airborne space for some reason, and the shot seemed to cause a
      piece of the doll to fall off and land onto the ground. As soon as the piece hit the ground, it
      scurried into the ground in a way that looked like it simply clipped through. Meanwhile, drag
      marks scurried along the ground in a similar manner to the piece that ran off and burrowed into
      a different, new hole.
      
      Suffice it to say, our perception of the thing seemed to shrink its actual size, making fighting it
      and figuring out where it is a bit of a challenge.
      
      My need to figure out a plan was interrupted by Garty running for her life yet again, so I took aim
      and fired at where I guessed one of its legs was which seemed to get its attention before it could
      get too close to her. As it began to charge at me, I tried searching my head for an idea, but was
      interrupted by it rearing its arms back and flinging them at me from across the crater, causing
      some of its body to fly at me. These chunks seemed to expand as they homed in on me.
      
      At this point, shit had been going down way too fast, and one fluke wasn’t enough to
      permanently make me turn myself away from my greatest asset. So with my hesitancy smashed
      I tried hopping into the Layers. However, my attempt was immediately stopped by that same
      nauseous feeling I had gotten earlier. It became clear to me then that my inexplicable
      exhaustion had taken its toll and in response, I jumped out of the way of the expanding masses
      as they got way too close for comfort. Unfortunately, I did not have any countermeasure for the
      giant fucking doll coming straight at me and with fatigue creeping in it looked bleak for me, but
      before I could even react, a single word was screamed out from the other side of the crater.
      
      “Duck!” I immediately hit the deck with my hands over my head, as explosives pelted the dolls
      actual legs, it fell to the floor just a few meters away from me. Before it could grab me, I pulled
      myself up and out of its reach, causing it to thrash in frustration. As I was approaching Garty my
      leg bumped into something, it was metal, some broken components of Giep, Illfer, and I’s
      machines. I quickly searched the pile for any flat but thick piece of metal that would work for the
      plan that my exhausted mind was beginning to formulate. Luckily I found one that would work
      perfectly since it was just slightly bigger than Garty’s proportions, she would have to tuck her
      arms in but it would work.
      
      As Garty ran up to see me scouring the pile of dead electronics she asked, “What the fuck are
      you doing?”
      
      “Getting you out of here.” I said making sure to grab her arm and the piece of metal before she
      could object. Unfortunately she did object to my poor wording which I promptly ignored as I took
      her to the center of the crater, directly under the portal, making sure to lay the metal piece flat
      on the ground and shoving Garty on top.
      
      I put up a hand and a stern face to get her to stop talking long enough for me to explain myself,
      “First of all, I will get myself out too, you have my word. Second of all, I need you to lay down on
      this metal slab here keeping your arms tucked in. Don’t worry, it's thick enough to block the
      explosive and yes I tested it personally beforehand. I’m going to plant some small leftover
      explosive under you so as to get you close to the portal. As you get up there, make sure you do
      anything to get as close to the portal as possible, it should suck you in as you get to about 2.5
      meters of the-” I realized now that the doll had gotten completely silent. I looked over and saw in
      horror that its legs were mostly healed, with pieces of the doll slithering up its legs and
      reattaching as if nothing had happened. I needed to hurry, so I turned to Garty and said, “Get on
      there NOW!”
      
      As she laid down I fought the wooziness one more time to reach into my bag withintThe Layers
      that held 41,651,983 kilograms of C4 to grab a small enough piece that would give her the
      explosive force needed to reach the portal. All I needed to do from there was to follow my
      internal calculations by placing the C4 at the exact center of the metal, connect it to the
      detonator, take the detonator out, and click the-
      
      Before I could send her up there, bubbly blood started frothing from my mouth, and then it came
      out of everywhere. I hacked up blood violently and it came out of every orifice, my nose, eyes,
      mouth, ears, wounds, and my ass. It even started bursting out of my skin, erupting like tiny
      volcanoes of my body’s most precious resource. Particularly, the bite wound was leaking the
      most. I guess I really should have listened to whatever Garty had to say after the Dauber
      Demon bit me. There was so much blood that it slathered my detonator, causing it to slip from
      my hands. I kneeled down shakily to grab it, my body screamed in response and puked up more
      of my insides as I desperately tried to wrestle back the strength to wrap my hands around it and
      press the button. While doing all of this, the doll began charging directly at us, we were running
      out of time and way too fast.
      
      The thuds of the doll and of my heart trying to fight for its last few moments took up the attention
      of both of my ears, causing Garty’s cries to drown out as she laid on the metal. And then, just as
      the noise was getting to me, I grabbed the detonator, pulled myself up, and pressed the button. I
      felt the explosion behind me, the shrapnel hit my lower legs, and heard Garty’s cries being
      drowned out by her launch, but it didn’t matter to me anymore, I was free. In those final
      moments, I felt a devilish grin stretch across my face.
      
      I felt the doll loom over me and rear its arms back for a swing, and closed my eyes. Getting hit
      by that doll felt like getting hit by a goddamn freight train going at its fastest speed, and
      slamming and crumpling against a rock after getting sent flying certainly didn’t help me feel
      better. My body had reached its breaking point, too many nerves were firing off signals that
      forced my body to shut down in a pointless attempt to preserve myself. I could try to move my
      arms and legs as the blood pooled and writhed around my soon-to-be-corpse but that would
      have been completely useless. As pain dominated my senses, feelings of broken bones and
      limbs stretched across my body, and as cerebral fluid from my brain pooled into my eyes, I knew
      that this run was over for me no matter what. As I felt the last bit of life drain from me the doll
      approached slowly to finish me. In those moments, through labored and frothy breath, I looked
      up at the sky.
      
      In the sky, I saw a giant censor bar, just looming over the horizon. There were only two things I
      knew about the entity that watched me that day.
      
           1. It was there the whole time our team was there, only making itself known in our final
          moments, judging from Giep and Illfer’s story.
      
          2. It smiled as the doll brought it’s foot down, completely crushing me.
      
      How do I know these things? I genuinely have no idea.

  
      The singular second of darkness that occurs between death and restoration always terrified me.
      However, during this restoration, a lot of questions crossed my mind. Here’s a few interesting
      ones.
      
      Did Garty make it back safely?
  
      Was our mission a success?
  
      What was that thing in the sky? That doll? That dog? Anything else I saw there?
  
      Will I wake up?
  
      Will I ever see Olga, Johann, Luna, Karthi, Jules, or Garty ever again?
  
      Wait, who's Karthi?
  
      Oh god, am I dead?
  
      Will I stay dead forever?
  
      Is there anything after this?
  
      Can someone help me?
  
      Why can’t I scream?
  
      And then I pushed myself up off the table, darkness permeated the room, preventing me from
      seeing the walls or ceiling, assuming the place had any and I felt tiny familiar needle pricks
      leave the back of my head as I ascended. There was a dim light around my chair and other
      much dimmer lights in the room with similar equipment and bodies, but what was most
      interesting was the tiny pyramid shaped robot standing next to a monitor right next to my bed.
  
      Despite only being in a pair of dark pants and a sports bra, I flung my feet off the table and got
      up to walk away.
  
      “Thanks Kling for bringing me back again.” I said over my shoulder.
  
      “All in a day’s work fella, but uh, one quick question before you leave.” I had already reached out
      into thin air for the doorknob by the time he had said this, my hand gently resting on the
      newfound knob as I turned back. “When we reconstruct your body, for the first few seconds your
      amygdala is more active than usual in our other human members. Specifically, it’s active in a
      similar manner to how other humans experience stress. Have you been talking to your
      psychologists about what plagues you?”
  
      My grip on the doorknob tightened. “Yes. I brought it up a long time ago.”
  
      “My condolences ma’am. Now be on your way.” She said before turning back to her monitor,
      some hideous form beginning to take shape in her chair as she continued working.
  
      I opened the door and found myself facing the nothingness that the Edge of Reality was often
      permeated with. Images and thoughts from my memories coalesced in this place and I reached
      out to one in particular. the Tower where my device to enter the Negative Layers had been built.
      I opened the door to my destination and found a crowd gathered in a circle around the base of
      the Tower.
  
      I ran towards the crowd as soon as I heard Garty shouting for them to back off. I knew they were
      all scientists and harmless for the most part, but I still worried they might get unnecessarily hurt
      as I waded through the crowd. I finally pushed my way through and burst out to the other side
      shouting, “Wait Garty! We aren’t going to hurt you!” I kept my arms out, palms pointed at her and
      her Fireworks.
  
      Recognition crossed her face as she turned to me, “Alex… How did you get out of there?”
  
      “I dodged the doll and managed to blow my way up, the same way for you. My comrades here
      patched me up the second I got through.” She didn’t need to know that I had died and been
      brought back. At least not yet.
  
      Although her expression softened, she was still in threat mode, so I slowly approached with
      arms held up right up until I was in front of her Fireworks. It was hard to notice but she was
      shaking, and angry.
  
      “Please… put it away… your safe here, I promise… You don’t need to fight anymore… Never
      again…” I hadn’t even noticed the tears pouring down my eyes until I finished up the last
      sentence. “Please.” Was all I could say left.
  
      That was apparently all she needed as the Fireworks were stored away. This was the first time
      since I had met her that any of the muscles in her body visibly relaxed. She dropped her arms
      and her gaze to the floor, I don’t think she was actually prepared for this moment, she probably
      tried to stow away any thoughts about what this would look like to keep herself strong. Now that
      she has the slightest confirmation that things will be alright, the dam just broke. So I did the only
      thing I knew to do and wrapped my arms around her in a hug. She returned the hug and quietly
      sobbed in my ear. It would be the first of many times I would hear her cry.

  
      Damn, did this take a while, but I’m pretty proud of this thing all in all. Might be my favorite of the
      stories I have written so far and man was it a joy to write and brainstorm ideas for. I don’t really
      have a whole lot to say here since this is a pretty early rough draft, but all I will say for now is
      that I really love this one and it’s probably the first one I’m at least a little proud of :3

  
      Wow, it really is a new year huh? I’m probably gonna be looking back on this story for a long
      time to come. The setting and characters actually felt like they came to meet my visions and
      expectations and I don’t nitpick anything as I look back on it now. For the first time ever I feel
      proud about a creative endeavor of mine. And yeah, maybe it actually is shit, but I’m proud
      godammit and that’s what matters. But that’s not really the reason I’m gonna remember this
      story. The date on the first post-author note was one of the biggest days of my life and probably
      the worst, because of what happened after I finished the first rough draft ever. I don’t wanna get
      all sappy or say too much about myself, but it made me wake up to the fact that their was a lot
      that I still needed to do to get my shit together. Particularly, I’ve been stuck in a lonely little
      bubble ever since I accepted I was trans and haven’t been able to figure a way out. I had
      someone to at least occupy that bubble with me which made me feel better and allowed me to
      ignore the loneliness for a while, but on the day that I finished that first draft they left for good.
      Over the past four months, we’ve been trying to repair the bridge between us and have been
      making decent work of it, but I still can’t ignore the fact that I’ve remembered just how lonely I
      am. So why am I writing this weird ass multidimensional-gorey-freaky horror story instead of
      going out and making friends? Because I frankly have no idea what the fuck I’m doing. I see lots
      of autistic people online say that they feel like they somehow missed out on the rules of life,
      while everyone else knows them naturally and if my life is anything to go by I certainly relate to
      that feeling. I’m trying to compete in a race, but I have no clue where the motherfucking start
      line is. It feels like every major endeavor in my life, I really have to find my own unique approach
      and solution in order to solve whatever problem I encounter. And so this is one of my
      approaches. I love writing and storytelling so here’s my own contribution to humanity’s large
      catalogue of both. I don’t really know if this is gonna go anywhere or if anyone will even read
      these stories, but I do know that if these stories can make at least one person smile or even just
      feel less alone for a single instant then all of this effort will have been worth it. As for me, I’ll try
      my best to get out of this lonely little bubble, it might take me some months, a year, a few years,
      a decade, or even my entire life, but all I know is that I’m gonna try my goddamn best. I wanna
      talk to other trans artists, play TTRPGs, flirt with other tgirls with the fact that I can deadlift over
      250 lbs (hopefully this number only gets higher). I don’t know. All I do is that, if I can even poke
      a little hole into this bubble for others to come in, then maybe I’ll at least be able to live my days
      with the knowledge that I’ll be able to die happy someday. Thanks for reading this, all of it if
      you're insane like I am.

  
      My deadlift pr is now 265 motherfuckers.


      Point of Entry