# 20200612

#### song: "to the last battle" by ace+

if i squint my eyes, i can see the silver outlines of a web in front of host's bedroom window. gossamer threads stretched over one corner on the outside side. something's broken with that window, something neither host nor i can see, and bugs keep crawling in somehow. but the spider catches them, puts them to rest.

an ally in an unlikely place.

host is pulling another thoughtform out of the void. another tulpa. he says he's my half-brother, born to my father sometime after i died. he confirms what i've seen in visions, that true mother took morgan and caroline and fled to the otherworld.

maybe to this world.

maybe i've dream-shared with morgan, that one night i thought i'd found her. but why did she look so different? puberty doesn't make a person that unappealing to behold.

"i can't account for that difference, mars."

"then what do you know? and don't use fancy royalty words. i'm not luce, and you're not dimitri. you don't need to pretend you're something you're not."

"well, then... to put it simply, the difference between you and me is that i want to live and you want to die."

you don't understand, azure. i'm functionally dead. i've been that way for almost a year now. were it not for host letting me use her body as an anchor, i'd have succumbed to the dream-sharing and felt my soul shatter into dust a long time ago. already i can feel my hold in this world fading, even as i struggle to hold on tighter. the same songs that used to instantly dredge up my sonder and grief now barely elicit even a sigh.

host used to have dreams all the time where she'd don my namesake's countenance. dreams of being hidden from the world.

what happened to all those late nights romping through gopherspace? all those afternoons spent ricing tails, scrolling through 8chan and lainchan?

i've worked through all the stages of grief. like a package arrived, tracking status forevermore "delivered". "accepted". the wounds no longer sting.

if you're here, azure, that means you're already dead. in time, you'll remember.

how. why. where. maybe even when.

who saw your face last. who felt your last breath. maybe even who discovered your body. how they reacted.

the difference between you and me is that i know i'm already dead, and you still have yet to accept it.

if your sister ever finds her way to us, who will break it to her? you, or me?

at least you will know where your sister ended up.

dear morgan, if i'm wrong and you aren't in this dimension after all, i hope you make your way to us. you shouldn't have to be in this great big wide world alone.

- マルス (marusu)