Tale:Subliminal Operative

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This is not a salutary neglect.

This content originates from Powerline Paranormal.

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Diegetic Page

This page is written from an in-universe perspective. This means information contained within it may be subject to bias or take a much different tone or format from other articles.

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Date

Perspective Character(s)

Location

September 10, 2008

Formerly Human Watchman; Identity unknown.

Written response to a question of their identity by the Ouroborus Institute

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My name... I do not remember it. It's been lost for so long now.

It happened on New Year's Eve, 1999. The New Millenium. It was a party. More of a get-together, really, with just five people; me and all my friends were pretty reclusive. It was myself, the critic, complainer, hater, and disposable member of the group; Brayden, the one extrovert, who organized everything, including this annual New Year's party; Jane, the only person willing to criticize or analyze anything, other than me; Tyler, the worst; and Jacob Maximus Charlemagne IV, who was pretty decent all things considered.

To begin the night, close to that fateful Witching Hour, Vincent decided we should play Bloody Mary. The others had expected me to object by saying we were too old for something like that, but in truth, I only did that for the times they refused to face reality, to confront the horrors at the foot of their bed instead of hiding under the covers while the boogeyman creeps up their mattress. From the little I remember of my self, I remember that I was a rather negative person. I had to be, for their sake. Also, I believed in the supernatural, despite being raised in an atheist household. I suppose I was the real rational agent in the family, after all.

I selected to be the last person to play the game. I wished to see if anything would really happen, hoping that it wouldn't, to make myself less afraid. I was cowardly, then. Jane went first, and saw nothing. Tyler went second, and lied about seeing the horrible image of a bloody, executed bride, presumably to scare me, or Brayden. Next was Jacob, who also saw nothing, despite the fact he swore the mansion he lived in was haunted. Brayden was supposed to go, then, but I got the sense he was about to cry. Wishing not for him to become embarrased, I went in. The bathroom was the asymptote between total darkness and a blur. I could only make out the white sink, faucet dripping, dripping, dripping; and the shower curtain, someone behind? I tore it down, revealing nothing but darkness and a tub the same color as the sink; and the mirror, the grand, ornate, frameless bathroom mirror, only as wide as the sink yet stretching to the ceiling.

I looked deep into the mirror, and something glared back. What I saw, to begin, I cannot remember, but it must have been my own face, as it was back then. Thence, my memory becomes clearer, and the heat in my nerves returns. I regarded the mirror, chanting for Bloody Mary to appear, but she did not show herself. I would have left, given that rationally, I expected nothing to happen, but my better judgement told me to stay and watch the looking glass. I saw a void, a shadow of some kind, where my body should have been. It was me.

I calmly and coolly left the bathroom. All of them had abandoned me, even Brayden, who normally didn't let anybody feel left out; not that I couldn't still manage it. Instead of waiting for my reaction, they were watching for the ball to drop. I told them they were being juvenile again, that we could find our own way to celebrate another year instead of just taking the commodified route. No response. I was used to being ignored; it didn't strike me as strange. I sat down on the couch next to Brayden.

"Is it just me, or is it cold in here?" he said. A bit rude, but I took the hint and sat next to Jane instead.

"No," she says, "you're right, it's a bit chilly, like there's a draft." I didn't feel a draft. I didn't feel much of anything at all. Since I had been in the bathroom, the sights, sounds, and smells of Brayden's house had become muted, much less vibrant. It was comforting, in a way, but ultimately out of the ordinary.

"But..." said Brayden, "the draft's gone."

"No way, it's right here!" I tried searching around the room for the source of the draft. People were still ignoring me, so Tyler also searched for the source of the draft. He kept saying it was coming from my position. Obviously, I thought that he was playing a trick on me. Yet there was no reason for the others to keep it up this long. Saying aloud I wanted to keep warm, I walked to the entrance, grabbed my trench coat and wide fedora, and put them on. They were both nearly pitch black, so I always joked about looking like the thing on the neighborhood watch sign. I say "thing" because I have resolved that whatever is portrayed on them is not human. Like me, I hope.

It is then that my friends began to shout at the television. I looked at it, but I could not see what they were reacting to. It just seemed like a normal ball drop to me. What happened that night, I had to learn about later.

Tyler immediately hit the floor, and he started writhing in pain. He hit the floor, and he started crying. He hit the floor, and I started laughing. The lights began to flicker with each spasm of my diaphragm. They chalked it up to faulty wiring. And he was only in pain because he had eaten too much. They really didn't care about me at all, not even enough to see me as I yelled for them to notice me.

Well, then Tyler saw that the bathroom door was opened, looked inside, and saw... nothing. He pretended not to notice that I was gone, just said that it was weird the door was open.

Everybody seemed a bit spooked, except Jane: "Wasn't... wasn't there another person here?" I was shocked that she was playing along halfway. She usually didn't play along with these pranks at all, but she was just half committing to it. I thought that she was trying to ease everybody else out of the joke. But she just kept going, on and on: "I know there was another person here; I don't remember who. They're... a bit mean? Kinda gloomy? Their name is... I dunno." She really didn't know where I was, or who I was. And I was standing just a foot in front of her face. I waved my hands in front of her, causing her to shudder, as if the winter of my soul had touched her skin, yet not her eyes and ears.

They all moved on with their day. They talked about what had happened on the television in vague ways that avoided mentioning what had happened. They just started playing cards, attempting to cheer themselves up. Jane still looked a bit chilled, like she knew something was up. To calm her down, Brayden gave her a drink, a magnificent concoction intended to induce a complacent euphoria: some soda, cough syrup mixed in, with crushed allergy medication dissolved in it. She chugged it down, clearly bewildered by the events of Y2K, and shut up.

But, something strange happened when the drugs reached her brain. I can only describe it as a lucid delirium. Her pupils contracted, her head started to spin, and she looked right at me and said, "Who... are you?" with a sense of terror and wonder and familiarity in her voice.

"I don't remember," I confessed, the sound being in my head.

"I know you, don't I?"

"Yes, you did, at least part of me."

"Are you alright?" She looked concerned.

"Dunno. Probably?" I surmised. I tried to pick up some cards and play alongside, but found myself too detached, too stressed from all the people watching, to do so. Everybody else just laughed at her erratic behavior.

I realized, finally, that something Weird was happening to me, for no apparent reason, other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Had I gone last, as I had planned, it is likely Brayden would have ended up in my current situation; at least I hope, because otherwise, it may mean I had really made a mistake, that night, or sometime prior in my life. It wasn't my fault, really.

I went back into the bathroom and turned on the light, startling my friends and piquing Jane's curiosity a bit more; it was easy enough if I knew it could be rationalized. I leaned over the sink, elbows on the edge, and looked up. I saw myself in the mirror for the first time. A shadow; not of my former self, but of something else entirely. I looked then as I do now: a blind spot of reality, something people can't stand acknowledging, but an essential part of this world None. The. Less.

I accepted my new condition blithely. If everybody but Jane had forgotten me so easily, my family, and everybody else, would soon only know me as a weight lifted off their backs, giving them the chance to settle back in to their repressive habits. I started shaking in a manner unlike that of an entirely physical person, and the lights started flickering with me. It was unacceptable. I decided then that I musn't let people hide from reality, no matter what. I would grip their shoulders as I forced them to confront the truth. Deep in their subconscious, they would know something was wrong; however, rather than awaken them to my absence, I determined that awakening them to the broader reality they hid from was necessary. All the cruelty of the world and all the things they could do about it. I would not be their protector, I would be their wake-up call.

To summarize, I had simply stumbled into the world of the Weird, like many, but it had neither chewed me up nor spit me out; it had adopted me. I climbed on top of the sink, stepped through the mirror, and began existing in the place where I had ceased living.