01 | 🕐 | audio

[mirrortouch]

[ It's not something that really ever becomes routine, it doesn't matter how often he wakes up someplace strange and uncharted. The voice on the line sounds about as scattered as he feels. ]

My name is Will Graham, it's- [ He's pulling back his sleeve to look for a watch that's not there. ] I don't have the time. I don't- I don't have the time.

[ Hang on, don't get too lost. ]

It's not clear to me exactly where I am, but- [ a dry laugh ] you probably already knew that. This isn't even my phone. But you probably knew that too.

[ He's missing details. He's missing plenty. His voice trails off for a short while before he can get his bearings enough to speak again, and even then it's almost unconsciously. ] I don't know. I don't know.

[ It's as if the fact that he has no idea sparks him back into the present. His voice grows more composed, if somewhat cracked. ] So if you're hearing this, if anyone is hearing this - [ is anyone hearing this? ] - any singular indication will be key.

[ Another beat. ]

I feel as though I've strayed a long, long way from home.

[ The air goes dead, and then so does the line. ]

Comments

[mirrortouch]

[ It turns out 'more', rather than 'less'. Will's question is careful: ]

Did it make you feel powerful?

[godsays]

That was how it used to be. That God died, and anyway, he's not here.

Power is complicated.

[mirrortouch]

Power, by its very definition, is mere control, whether it be captaining an entire fleet or washing your hands in counts of eight. Whether you be God's right hand man, as it were -

Power isn't complicated. Power just differs from beholder to beholder. Maybe your God just stopped talking. I imagine that would inspire an infinitesimal sort of quality.

[godsays]

No. He died. There's a new one, back where I come from, who doesn't like to give commands.

Neither of them are here.

And I don't kill people anymore. Unless I have to.

[mirrortouch]

A godless death would be a particularly lonely one.

[ So long as they're still going by definition, or at the least Will is. The man's presumably an inmate, which means, also presumably, that he's been told he's dead here, with just as much evidence of the fact therein. He's got a lively one here. ]

If not Him, I wonder who it is that tells you to kill now.

cw: mention of self-harm

[godsays]

It's just me, in my head. What's left of it comes from me.

[ The fascination and struggle alike. The horror and the thrill. He loves the power of being a Mistborn, but he doesn't want to be someone else's pet killer. Sometimes, the need bubbles up, the whisper of his memory, the voice: kill him. Kill her. She's useless. Don't let him go. Betray her first. He resists it. Sometimes, it means calling up blood and pain, leaving long scars on his arms, to quiet it. Most of the time, he manages without.

Zane came here looking to be saved.

He's graduated, now. It doesn't mean that he feels good yet. Or that he feels like anything but the weapon he was made to be. ]

[mirrortouch]

[ It's just me, and, what's left of it comes from me. That sinks itself in as forcibly as it can muster, nails buried deep under the soil. He reflects on that with equal parts interest and a mild, uncomfortable familiarity. ]

And your name?

[godsays]

Zane.

[ Just Zane. He claims no family identity. He was illegitimate, in the first place, and his father only offered him legitimacy when he thought Zane was about to kill him. Pathetic. ]

[mirrortouch]

[ Alright. He will bite. ]

Which side of the - inmate/warden line, as it were, have they got you pinned on, Zane?

[godsays]

I was an inmate.

I graduated.

Now I have an inmate.

[ It's not a comfortable transition. It's not a comfortable state of being. ]

[mirrortouch]

And yet reform doesn't seem to have made you the any less violent for it. Acting on the impulses or not.

Normalcy [ whatever that means ] seems something unobtainable, a tomb's baited prize sitting atop the highest shelf.

[godsays]

Someone here told me who you are is about what you do, not what you think. It seems to me that it's all a part of it - but that the choices you make are the most important. Even when I heard God's voice every day I chose not to kill, often. I choose not to now.

[mirrortouch]

There is a certain - divine connotation that comes with showing restraint.

[ Will adjusts his glasses, unseen, and can't help but ask: ]

You couldn't quiet the voices, but you did stop. How is that, if you don't mind my asking?

[godsays]

The voice. The one.

I just didn't obey until I wanted to. It became comforting. It was a friend. It was the voice of suspicion in my mind. I never trusted it.

[mirrortouch]

For some people, that voice of suspicion sounds a lot like the rest of their thought process. Like separating a black from a slightly darker black. Or picking out a bad egg without having to crack it open first.

[godsays]

It told me to kill everyone I saw.

...Almost.

[mirrortouch]

So, why did you do it? Listen?

Nobody kills without reason. Even if it's not a particularly good reason, there's still reason.

[godsays]

This one, because he slighted me. This one, because I could see through her, and she wanted to deceive me. This one, because he was in my way. Why does it matter? I killed someone here because I was in rage and she was there.

[mirrortouch]

It's not a particularly bad reason.

[ He killed Randall Tier because he was there, because he would have died otherwise. The rest is a different story. ]

But how did it make you feel? Killing them, that sort of power over them.

[godsays]

[ For Zane, the answer is obvious. He sidesteps it. ]

If it didn't feel good, it wouldn't be a problem.

[mirrortouch]

How stalwart you are in your recovery.

I wonder how I might elevate to the same level. [ Dryly, sarcastically: ] Perhaps there's no hope.

[godsays]

I wouldn't trust hope. Stubbornness, maybe. Or a reason to push.

I don't think you're like me. I was raised to be a killer. Sharpened into a knife, every day.

[mirrortouch]

What reason have I here? It's a literal dead end.

Tell me. How you see me.

[godsays]

How I see you?

I think you're broken. I think the world gave you too much to handle and your mind can't take it.

But you're here now. You're in the Barge. We've all touched the darkness here. We've all faced things that are too large for us. You're not alone anymore.

[mirrortouch]

[ It's not a bad presumption. It's not a bad assessment either, though Will finds it interesting whatever it is that he had to go on when he chose that choice of words.

'Broken', particularly by the world, it's been used in definition of him so often and so intimately that it hardly phases him by this point in the game.

He waits, maybe for something else to be said, before he speaks very plainly: ]

"Loneliness" isn't calculable by mere quantity of company, or even quality.

It's a space boat. It's a space boat prison. I'm feeling an overabundance of abandonment.