“Do you remember Dad?”
I looked up at my sister. Just like always, it was like looking into a mirror where the reflection was just slightly off. Subtle differences here and there that most people wouldn’t even notice, but were obvious to me. I shook my head as I took another bite of my sandwich. We only had thirty minutes for lunch, and I wanted to finish eating so we had time to play a bit before the teacher called us back in.
“No.”
My sister watched me for a few moments before nodding. “It’s better that way.”
I shrugged as I swallowed down the wad of bread and peanut butter. “I wish I did though.” Meeting her eyes, I raised an eyebrow. “Do you?”
She mimicked my shrug. “Yeah, some. In time so will you.”
What did that mean? I went to ask when a painful twisting sensation gripped my belly. I dropped the last of my sandwich as I clutched my stomach, the aching pressure of something coming up filling my throat and then my mouth as I vomited out a mixture of my lunch and…what was that? A little wooden tile?
Still coughing and gagging a little, I poked at the small pile of throw up with the toe of my shoe, flipping over the little wooden tile where it lay in the wet grass. On the other side was a letter—M—and beside it in lower, smaller type was the number three. I stared at it in confusion. Where had that come from? Raising my head to look at my sister, another wave of nausea gripped me. Retching, I spat out a small square that fluttered to the ground next to where the letter tile lay. Eyes watering, I finally looked up at my sister, expecting her to be surprised or even horrified. Instead she was just watching me silently.
“What’s happening? Why would I puke that up?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Must be a reason. What’s that second thing you just threw up?”
Grimacing, I bent down and picked it up, my fear and curiosity overriding my disgust as I gave it a shake and brought it closer. I felt myself gag again. It stank. Going over to the water fountain, I washed it off quickly before bringing it back to where my sister sat patiently waiting. Holding it out between my thumb and forefinger, I showed it to her.
“I think it’s a slide. Like an old-timey photo like they showed us on the projector thing that time.” I turned it over in my hand. “It’s like someone cut away most of the paper part and just left the picture and a little paper edge.” My heart was hammering in my chest, and I could hear the tremor in my voice when I spoke next. “But how did it get inside me? I didn’t eat this. Why would I?”
She frowned and nodded. “No, I believe you. It’s weird, right? What does the slide show?”
Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I raised my other arm toward the sky as I squinted into the small dark square. It wasn’t a picture there, not really. It was just words—white letters on a dark brown background. It said:
Recursion: A problem, function or process that repeats and defines itself at least partially by itself.
The next time I vomited like that was three years later when I was twelve. I was alone in the bathtub—my sister was already in bed and our foster parents were downstairs watching television. It was scarier this time, not because I didn’t know what was going on but because I did immediately. That first day on the playground had been so terrifying and strange, and when my sister said we shouldn’t tell anyone, I was happy to agree, wanting to forget it all with a desperation that the nine year-old me had never known before.
But I hadn’t forgotten, and I kept the tile and the slide, even when we moved back to the orphanage and then onto these new parents a few months later. And in the tub, my momentary surprise and shock was quickly overcome by the instinct to catch what fell from my mouth in trembling hands and lay it out to dry.
It was another letter tile. This one an A with a small “1” next to it. And following that, another cut-down slide. This one said:
A recursive loop is a special kind of looping construct. As opposed to a normal infinite loop, a recursive loop has an ending, with each repetition potentially bringing the process to the intended goal and terminating the loop.
“You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” I stared at Andrew with a mixture of anxiety and anger. He hadn’t said anything when I was explaining what I’d been going through since I was a kid, and even now he was just looking at me, his face unreadable.
Lifting his eyebrows, he gave a small shake of his head. “No, I don’t think so. It’s strange sure, but I don’t think you’re crazy or a liar, and there’s plenty of strange things we don’t understand, right?”
Unable to help myself, I leaned forward and gave him a tearful hug. “I…I can show you. I have proof. I just…you asked if I was okay when I had to get up and run to the bathroom and I was just going to say ‘yeah, I’m okay’ but then I was like no, I’m not okay, and I feel really connected to you, you know? Like if anyone would understand it’d be you, but I was so scared you wouldn’t and…”
He rubbed my back as he gave a small laugh. “Slow down. It’s okay. Yeah, I believe you. I can’t tell you what’s causing it, but I believe you.” Pulling back, he met my gaze. “Have you been to a doctor? Or a therapist?” Eyes widening, he raised his hand. “Not saying you’re crazy, I’m not. But there’s stuff where people eat weird shit, right? I think it’s called pica or something?”
I shook my head. “No, I’ve never told anyone but my sister and…well, you’ve met her. She doesn’t talk to anyone much other than me.” I wiped at my eyes. “It feels really good to tell someone else.”
Andrew nodded. “Yeah, she’s not super-outgoing, that’s for sure. But that’s my point. Maybe you’re like sleepwalking and eating stuff without realizing it?”
I shrugged. “I’ve considered it, but it’s just so weird and specific that I don’t see how.” Rolling my eyes, I stood up. “Let me just get the stuff so you can see it. It’ll make it easier to explain.”
A couple of minutes and I was back stting across from him on my bed with the box I’d pulled out of the top of my closet, as well as the tile and slide I’d left on the back of my toilet from earlier in the night. Wrinkling his nose, he grimaced.
“Man, they really do smell don’t they?”
I felt heat flood my face. “Fuck, want me to go clean them more? I did wash them off, but I’m sorry it’s so gross.”
He barely seemed to hear me as he looked at the tile and slide laying on my comforter next to the box. “Jesus. It’s really just like you said. A “K” tile with the letter score. 5.” Looking back up at me, his expression was serious. “Have you read this slide yet?”
I shook my head. “I was about to when you knocked on the bathroom door. Want to read it now?” I was reaching for it when he touched my arm.
“Show me what’s in the box first.”
M. 3.
Recursion: A problem, function or process that repeats and defines itself at least partially by itself.
A. 1.
A recursive loop is a special kind of looping construct. As opposed to a normal infinite loop, a recursive loop has an ending, with each repetition potentially bringing the process to the intended goal and terminating the loop.
G. 2.
The intended goal of a recursive loop is to invoke the entity being defined from within its own loop. It will be called over and over until the loop is answered and satisfied. This is true in mathematics and computer logic, but these are just flawed reflections of prime systems that are more perfect and true. Time is a selfish liar. Flesh and will are the truth, and by these truths we can evolve and be free.
I. 1.
Through mastering of perception and thought we can control consciousness. By controlling consciousness we can focus our will. By focusing our will we can make ourselves new. Ritual is the structure, flesh and pain and focused will are necessary variables. We will be whole through division and find singularity through repetition. I will break the bones of time and causality and reality until they have no choice but to let me go. I will split and merge and eat and vomit and live and die until it is done. I will ascend until I am ascended.
I stared at Andrew as he turned off the light on his phone. The text on the fourth was so small and cramped he’d had to shine a light through the slide to project it on the wall. Still staring at the spot on the wall where the words had been, he looked as shaken as I felt.
“That one scared me the most somehow. It was so strange, so insane. It made everything feel worse. More poisonous somehow.” Unable to look at him, I stared back down at the tiles and sucked in my breath. “It’s all happened so fast tonight, I didn’t even think about the letters. I think…I think they spell out ‘Magik’.”
Andrew frowned at me. “You were a lit major in college, right? So you know better than me, maybe. But isn’t magic spelt with a ‘C’?”
I nodded. “Now it is. But in older stuff, like Old English, it was spelled with a K. And maybe that’s not the word, but that’s the order I…um, got the tiles.” Shuddering, I stood up and began pacing again. “This is all too much. I haven’t looked at this stuff since I was in college, and that was five years ago. I’d almost started to think it had stopped, like I was growing out of it, as stupid as that sounds.”
“It’s not stupid. It’s just all so weird. And…hey, wait a second.”
Andrew was looking at the tiles again, moving them around into a different order. “What the…what the fuck?” His expression was troubled when he lifted his eyes again. “It’s Fibonacci.”
I raised an eyebrow. “It’s what?”
He shook his head, clearly frustrated. “Look, I took a bunch of math and computer science my first three years of college, and I don’t remember it all, but some of what the first slides were saying about recursive loops and all? That’s true. I had a class that talked about that. And one of the best known examples of a recursive is the Fibonacci sequence.” When I just stared he went on. “Okay, so if I remember right, Fibonacci numbers are defined by the two numbers that came before them in the sequence. So you start with 1. And then the next is the sum of 0 and 1, so it’s 1 again. Then its 1 and 1, which makes 2. Then 2 and 1 that makes 3. Then 3 and 2 and that makes 5. And so on. But don’t you see? The letters on these tiles spell magik, but in a different order, the letter scores on the tiles are the first five numbers in the Fibonacci sequence.”
“Okay, I think I get that. But couldn’t that just be coincidence?”
He started to respond and then stopped, seeming deep in thought. “It could be I guess, but I think Fibonacci is kind of a big thing. I remember the professor talking about how it shows up in patterns all around us, like in nature and stuff. And that was talked about in our textbooks too, so he wasn’t just pulling it out of his ass.” Andrew met my eyes. “Besides, what are the odds the tiles accidently match the Fibonacci sequence when the slides talk about recursion?”
I let out a short laugh I didn’t feel. “They also talk about rituals and stuff. It’s a bunch of crazy bullshit. I just…I don’t understand how someone is getting to me. Putting it in me.”
It was Andrew’s turn to give a hollow laugh. “Maybe it’s magic. Or ‘magik’.”
Tears sprang to my eyes. “It’s not funny. Do you understand how scary and…and violating this is? Someone is doing this to me, and I don’t know how to stop it.”
His face fell. “I’m so sorry. You’re right. I just…it’s freaking me out too and I make jokes when I’m nervous.” He looked like he was about to stand up and come to me when his gaze fell on the slide I’d thrown up in the bathroom a little earlier. He looked back up at me, his expression unreadable. “You haven’t looked at it yet.”
I felt a chill wash over me as I took an instinctive step back. “No, I’m done with this. You read it if you want. I can’t.”
He nodded, licking his lips nervously as he reached for it and held it up to the light. After a moment he looked back at me. “Do you want me to read it to you? It’s weird but it’s shorter.”
I felt a shiver as I looked away. “Yeah, fine.”
“Come to me. Come to me. You are invited by word and deed. Come to me. Come to me. By this offering you will be freed. Come to me. Come to me. Wards are mist and chains are dust, for there is only one of us.” Glancing up, Andrew’s gaze went past me in a look of surprised recognition. “Oh hey, Mary.”
The next moment there was a cracking boom behind me as the top of Andrew’s head exploded against the bedroom wall.
“Why are you doing this?”
My sister hadn’t said much since killing Andrew other than to telling me help her load the body into the trunk of her car before forcing me get in. She’d ziptied me to the passenger door handle as well, making it hard to turn and look at her as she drove us out into the desert. When I asked the question for the fourth time, she finally shot me a dark look and answered, her voice cold.
“Because it’s part of it. It’s all part of it. I do it this time, and next time you’ll do it to the next of us. We’ll keep going until its perfect and finished.”
I stared at her. “Are you talking about the slides?”
She slowed down as she made a wide turn onto a dirt road. The sky was growing dark, and the whirls of red dust looked like dying embers in the headlights. Nodding, she looked back to me.
“But the slides are just part of it. The tiles too. I know it doesn’t make any sense to you. You’ll see more on the next cycle, but I don’t know that much more than you really. Just that it’s all part of a bigger ritual. A larger formula that must be completed for us to be complete.”
Frowning, I shook my head. “But you’re saying there’s going to be another time like this and I’ll be like you?”
My sister laughed. “Not like me. You are me. And I’m you. And we are all variations of him. Or her. I don’t know. It’s hard to see the beginning and the end from the middle. Depending on the loop, we are our own siblings, our own parents, our own lovers. Every combination or permutation until we find the delicate balance between order and chaos. Between structure and freedom. That’s how we ascend.”
“Wait, who’s him or her? Who else is part of this?”
She smirked. “Andrew in the back for one. He’s part of us, though he didn’t realize it I don’t think. And our father is up here waiting.” Her smile faded away. “Him and the other one.” I lurched forward as she slammed on the brakes. “We’re here.”
I looked up to see we were outside of a huge rock face, and buried in that rock face was a large metal door. Nearby was a sign that was rusted through in several spots, though I could still faintly read a name in the glow of the headlights.
Tattersall Security
“Are we going in there?”
Mary glanced at the metal door and back at me. “Fuck no. There’s something buried down there that you don’t want waking up. But location is important, and this place is powerful. We’re going over the next hill.” Leaning over, she cut my ziptie. “Get out and help me carry Andy.”
I could see the glow of firelight before we reached the crest of the hill. I was carrying Andrew’s feet, and his gray, ruined face stared at me sadly as his head lolled back and forth with every jolting step across sand and rock and bush. My sister was insane. She’d murdered my boyfriend and now she was going to kill…
Below us, a man stood by a large bonfire watching our approach. I could only make out so much in the dancing flame and shadow, but it was enough to see it looked like Andrew, or at least what I’d imagine Andrew might look like in another thirty years. I wondered how that was possible, but then I saw motion in the shadows behind the man as something began crawling out into the light. When a flick of fire revealed it, I dropped Andrew’s feet as I let out a scream.
It was a mound of meat, bristling with rolls of grey flesh punctuated by ridges of bone that pressed the sickly meat white here and there. Its movements were slow and painful as it slid across the sand, each gesture tearing the flesh or reopening old weeping wounds in a dozen different places. As it drew closer to the fire, I saw its melted tumor of a head, topped with a puddle of features that might have once been eyes and a nose, but were all stretched and distorted like putty pulled too thin or pressed too hard. Only the mouth remained defined—round and wet and impossibly large as it snaked out a crooked tongue across its dirt-caked lips.
“Jesus. Pick him back up before he rolls down by himself.” She looked down at the man that looked like a man. He was dropping what looked like a letter tile, and then a slide, down the monster’s ghastly gullet, each swallow followed by a thick-sounding, satisfied smack from the thing. “Sorry, Dad. But I guess I did the same thing didn’t I?”
He gave her a sardonic smile. “Most of us do. Hurry up. The window has arrived. We need to close this loop now.”
Looking back at me, Mary glared until I bent down and picked up Andrew’s feet. I focused on his dead face now. Better that than…”What is that thing down there?” I tried to whisper, but my voice sounded loud in my own ears.
“It’s one of the first of us. Maybe the first. I don’t know. Apparently time isn’t just a liar, it’s a vengeful fucking bitch. And trying to fuck the so-called ‘natural order’ leads to the ‘natural order’ fucking you back.” She scowled. “It’s okay. We’re stronger and smarter. And we’re winning our freedom a loop at a time.” I could only partially absorb what she was saying. We were getting close to the man and the monster now, and I tried to put Andrew down again. She shot daggers at me. “Don’t you fucking do it. We have to feed him in to complete his part of the loop.”
I stared at her in horror. “Feed him into what?”
She cocked her head toward wet, smacking mouth that lay open and waiting nearby. “You know. Just do it.”
I jumped as the man spoke again. “Hurry, girls. The loop is getting smaller every time, but not if we don’t take advantage of these windows when we can start again. Pitch him in.” He sounded like Andrew too. Stifling a sob, I swung the body and let go, sending it into the mouth of the thing. Wet tearing and popping filled my ears as it began to chew him up. In a matter of moments, Andrew was gone.
“Good. Now you.”
Turning around, I saw the man was staring at me expectantly. “What are you talking about? You’re not fe—
I grunted as I was shoved hard from behind, pitching me forward into the wet and waiting maw, tumbling into a black hole with no light or sound, just terrible pressure crushing me without time until I heard myself being born.
“Do you remember our father?”
My sister looked up at me from her cheese sandwich. We were identical in nearly every way, but I could still tell the difference, even if others couldn’t. She was more imaginative and maybe stronger. I felt a stir of excitement as I wondered at the progress we could make this time round.
“No. Do you?”
I nodded, trying to hide my shiver. “A little, yeah. Don’t worry. In time you will too.”
Comments