Project W Subject 013 ("Albert Wesker") (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
subject_013) wrote2020-09-14 02:07 am
subject_013) wrote2020-09-14 02:07 am
Entry tags:
[Wesker's Report - September Session]
[Written longhand in a precise hand, in a moleskine-style journal]
“I dream of a grave, deep and narrow, where we could clasp each other in our arms as with clamps, and I would hide my face in you and you would hide your face in me, and nobody would ever see us any more” - Franz Kafka: The Castle
You had me read this when we were young. I found it dense and its twists interminable, but I spoke then with the arrogance of youth. However, this line returned to my memory, perhaps shaken loose when the need for it arose. Perhaps I am dreaming of this place where I have awakened. Perhaps those who sought to thwart my work and their own salvation have trapped me in this dream. Perhaps these scenes play in my mind as lie unconscious on the sand far below the old man's windows. Perhaps I lie sedated in an enemy stronghold, dreaming of this world, or with my mind and senses diverted by some highly immersive virtual reality simulation.
Or perhaps, it is all real. There are boundaries to this place, though it would appear that these lines are drawn by the hand of the supernatural, something that our world had often proved to be more often the craft of science sufficiently advanced, rather than the workings of beings only our imaginations could grasp for a brief moment before they slipped away. Perhaps it works in the opposite direction, and what we thought the work of science was the work of the supernatural that we parsed as scientific. I've since applied my energies to reading and researching what I can find on the matter, and both the library and the town's immigrant inhabitants, what they term 'Sleepers' have offered a bountiful harvest of knowledge.
Though the realm experiences the influence of other entities, One power in particular seems uppermost, one known as Julia Sodder, described as a young girl, the offspring of a human father and a mother from an elder race. The realm does bear the fingerprints of a child's imagination, albeit a child possessed of a great intellect and imagination, a maturity beyond her years, but still a child, by all accounts
It was autumn when I fell asleep in our world and it is autumn as I awaken here, though rather than melancholy November, it is September, and a halcyon one at that. They say this town lies somewhere in Maine, though somehow, it seems a Maine one step removed from the true land of the pointed firs. The golden leaves bear a gilded coat; one might easily think them a new hybrid, but the coating seems a gift from the powers in this place.
The vintage version of Halloween, so different from the dark and bloody and ghostly versions described in the lore of Samhain, has come over the town: lanterns stand before the homes of the Sleepers, either the oiled paper variety or the more traditional carven jack o'lanterns. These lent some comfort and guidance in the unusually dark nights that fell over the town, but with an added effect: around their circle of comfort and light, one might well see the shades of the departed. I thought I beheld your face in the light of one, but I soon found the features belonged to another, more ethereal visage than yours. At other times, I beheld the face of that bête-noir who held his wrath over us, the last face I desire to see.
The shops have stocked a supply of those "Goosebumps" books, childlike tales, but shiver-inducing for their intended audience. I wonder if Miss Birkin ever read them again after living something far more real and horrifying. But they seemed to take on lives of their own, quite literally. I saw things that had come up from the covers and pursue the readers, including a medieval-garbed executioner pursuing a library worker. The drive-in movie theatre was not spared the same effect: I saw someone pursued down a street by a flock of birds after a showing of Hitchcock's The Birds, and a woman on foot fleeing from a horde of zombies after Night of the Living Dead. At least a stranger in a black Lincoln came to her aide, letting her in before driving over the undead pests. Also, the local roller derby hosted a Halloween party, a family affair, but the derby itself proved amusing: the players transformed into cartoonish creatures of the night: werewolves, vampires, mummies, killer clowns (yes, a flash back to the urban legends of the 1980s), and of course, zombies. When you've seen and researched the actual creature, any representation pales in comparison.
In the face of these chummy autumn delights, the elder Sleepers continually warn the neophytes "October is coming, prepare yourself". The halcyon scenes, contrasted with these warnings, are enough to cause a cognitive or perhaps emotive dissonance, but we both know that I am immune to that. Is this a test of the spirit or a celebration of the fading of the season before the darkness closes in? To use a well-worn phrase, time will tell. I will remain vigilant, even while maintaining a facade of contentment, the polite if darksome stranger newly arrived and dipping a hand into the harvest-tide celebration. But the golden light never completely dispels the last traces of the shadows.
“I dream of a grave, deep and narrow, where we could clasp each other in our arms as with clamps, and I would hide my face in you and you would hide your face in me, and nobody would ever see us any more” - Franz Kafka: The Castle
You had me read this when we were young. I found it dense and its twists interminable, but I spoke then with the arrogance of youth. However, this line returned to my memory, perhaps shaken loose when the need for it arose. Perhaps I am dreaming of this place where I have awakened. Perhaps those who sought to thwart my work and their own salvation have trapped me in this dream. Perhaps these scenes play in my mind as lie unconscious on the sand far below the old man's windows. Perhaps I lie sedated in an enemy stronghold, dreaming of this world, or with my mind and senses diverted by some highly immersive virtual reality simulation.
Or perhaps, it is all real. There are boundaries to this place, though it would appear that these lines are drawn by the hand of the supernatural, something that our world had often proved to be more often the craft of science sufficiently advanced, rather than the workings of beings only our imaginations could grasp for a brief moment before they slipped away. Perhaps it works in the opposite direction, and what we thought the work of science was the work of the supernatural that we parsed as scientific. I've since applied my energies to reading and researching what I can find on the matter, and both the library and the town's immigrant inhabitants, what they term 'Sleepers' have offered a bountiful harvest of knowledge.
Though the realm experiences the influence of other entities, One power in particular seems uppermost, one known as Julia Sodder, described as a young girl, the offspring of a human father and a mother from an elder race. The realm does bear the fingerprints of a child's imagination, albeit a child possessed of a great intellect and imagination, a maturity beyond her years, but still a child, by all accounts
It was autumn when I fell asleep in our world and it is autumn as I awaken here, though rather than melancholy November, it is September, and a halcyon one at that. They say this town lies somewhere in Maine, though somehow, it seems a Maine one step removed from the true land of the pointed firs. The golden leaves bear a gilded coat; one might easily think them a new hybrid, but the coating seems a gift from the powers in this place.
The vintage version of Halloween, so different from the dark and bloody and ghostly versions described in the lore of Samhain, has come over the town: lanterns stand before the homes of the Sleepers, either the oiled paper variety or the more traditional carven jack o'lanterns. These lent some comfort and guidance in the unusually dark nights that fell over the town, but with an added effect: around their circle of comfort and light, one might well see the shades of the departed. I thought I beheld your face in the light of one, but I soon found the features belonged to another, more ethereal visage than yours. At other times, I beheld the face of that bête-noir who held his wrath over us, the last face I desire to see.
The shops have stocked a supply of those "Goosebumps" books, childlike tales, but shiver-inducing for their intended audience. I wonder if Miss Birkin ever read them again after living something far more real and horrifying. But they seemed to take on lives of their own, quite literally. I saw things that had come up from the covers and pursue the readers, including a medieval-garbed executioner pursuing a library worker. The drive-in movie theatre was not spared the same effect: I saw someone pursued down a street by a flock of birds after a showing of Hitchcock's The Birds, and a woman on foot fleeing from a horde of zombies after Night of the Living Dead. At least a stranger in a black Lincoln came to her aide, letting her in before driving over the undead pests. Also, the local roller derby hosted a Halloween party, a family affair, but the derby itself proved amusing: the players transformed into cartoonish creatures of the night: werewolves, vampires, mummies, killer clowns (yes, a flash back to the urban legends of the 1980s), and of course, zombies. When you've seen and researched the actual creature, any representation pales in comparison.
In the face of these chummy autumn delights, the elder Sleepers continually warn the neophytes "October is coming, prepare yourself". The halcyon scenes, contrasted with these warnings, are enough to cause a cognitive or perhaps emotive dissonance, but we both know that I am immune to that. Is this a test of the spirit or a celebration of the fading of the season before the darkness closes in? To use a well-worn phrase, time will tell. I will remain vigilant, even while maintaining a facade of contentment, the polite if darksome stranger newly arrived and dipping a hand into the harvest-tide celebration. But the golden light never completely dispels the last traces of the shadows.