Skull mask people surround Janice like her body is the central ruin of the fairground and their shapes are a dusking vignette closing in. The fallen Ferris wheel rests a few broken wheel footfalls beyond such shadowplay. Janice leans against a piece of destroyed carousel. One lone hollow horse torso impaled with broken spokes of wrenched metal. The legs and long faces of hard brown and party colour plastic lay like the present upon an archeological knowledge behind silhouette bodies of looming malediction. Janice climbs atop the lone simulacra horse. Prepares to swing the ornate phallus war hammer.

Torn osteal fabric eye hole masks contort. Wrinkle as they eerily gaze. Move closer like wretched nightmares. Shrink the shackling circle. They're unafraid of Janice. Almost seem to be smiling at her, like their masks are their true faces.

These people in no way resemble her entourage of Ghosts, which is obvious in the way they linger and fashionably intimidate. Brandish facial orifices like worm worn dead things. Lurks of movement. Cold weapons. Earthen attire. These people are of decrepit rock. Rust hard and damaged. Janice understands these people would prefer to break instead of bend. She's not their Grand Ghost. She's an intruder. Possibly a criminal in the gravity of their wretched eyes. They look at her like prey.

Every tattering torn silent breather points a gun toward Janice. Different positions and leans. Berettas and a few break action shotguns. A Chiappa Rhino revolver to compliment the gun metal sky. Bowie and billhook and golok machetes. Fantail and kent and boat hatchets stir in hands wearing velvety black Nubuck gloves. She recognizes the gloves. They seem out of place on these people. Her Ghosts wear such stitching. Wonders about her surviving army. Those who made it through the portal could have been captured by these...simulacrum. It's possible. It's also possible they just have nice gloves compared to the tatters of their uniform costumes. Doubtful. Knows she's fucked.

One Ghost drops a chain. Twirls a shadow spike skull Morning Star flail. The eyes in the skull are malachites of emerald. The twirler is short and womanly. Spins the weapon intently. Silently without breaking eye contact. The ball of crushing death becomes a horrible blur. Janice raises the phallus war hammer over her head like she means to crush bones into bread.

A tall, one arm Ghost quickly strides a revolver at Janice. Gets close enough to touch her forehead with the barrel. Feels the gouge tip of a much bigger barrel between her shoulder blades. A Ghost breaths on the back of her neck. Long sniff. The Ghost in front of her scoldingly shakes its head. Speaks like old bones creaking in the morning.

"You come back only to die again? Lousy way, lousy end."

"Huh?"

The revolver hammer clicks. Morning star whizzes past her ear.

"Ok! Ok! Fine! You've got me stronzo! I'm putting my big dick down. Figlio di puttana!"

The flail twirler swings hard. Throws the heavy skull ball above Janice's head, knocking the war hammer out of her hands. Doesn't witness where her disarmament falls. Feels the barrel between her shoulder blades disengage. Sighs. Knows what's coming. The back of her head hurts for a moment after a loud thump from the butt of what she presumes to be a shotgun. Loud thin ringing deafens her ability to understand sound. Everything becomes the spinning of unconscious darkness. Sleep comes as the feeling in her body numbs. Collapses onto the cement fairground.

Dreams of Patricia. Smiling and smelling and sweating. Fighting Patricia. Fucking Patricia in the war hole. Dreams of holding a pregnant Patricia, kissing an enormous belly. Feels the belly bulge of a baby kick. Stares into the skin eyes of Garett exposing himself through the flesh of the womb. Feel her eye tattoos blink like deep cuts and watches herself while her mouth tattoos eat her alive. As she's gobbled up, everything becomes a hollow echo of moments fading away. Death. Murder. She kills Garett again and again in her cement chain room. Witnesses her bed and watches Patricia give birth to a green eye revenant version of herself. Janice shivers. Notices she's pregnant and giving birth to her own menacing revenant. The world rocks back and forth and in and out of blurs. Thousands of malachite eyes. Patricia becomes the fissure bark skin of a bulge in a tree. Turns to dust as the simulacra tree disintegrates into the itchy mouths of millions of carpenter ants. Everything darkens and a single spotlight emerges. Flashes on and off above a table with a jawless skull at its centre. It has gravitational eyes. Stares like coffin drill holes. Without eyelids, it winks.

Janice slowly and heavily turns her eyes outside in. Becomes violently unconsciously conscious. Skin on spine feels like such's being flayed. Realizes the top of her head is crashing against something over and over, back and forth. Something penetrates her body through the subconscious into her loins. Janice wakes up to a Hell on earth.

Completely naked. A man with a large laughing needle and thread smile scar on his left cheek is breathing a foul wind breath down upon her and having his way with her in a position of missionary. Screams and claws his face. Rams his sculpture harder into her loins. Punches her in the temple numerous times. Sends her back to the unconsciousness of the skull on the table. His thrust and laughter echo through the rage of her Möbius spinning mind. The skull of David winks malachite again. Laughs in the way decomposition groans.

When she wakes, after dreaming of the nothing of something, Janice is still laying on her back. Not like before. A blanket covers her raped body. She's sore like broken branches of red wet and headache dry. Cheeks and lips and crotch hurt the most. Lifts the blanket. Witnesses herself in smears of blood and bruises from chest to ankles. Can smell his fluid on her skin. The liquid between her legs. Stomach turns nauseous. Slams her body to the right. Intending to vomit. Doesn't. Swallows back and holds the vile taste in. Swallows all the way down. A naked man's headless body lays beside her. Perhaps her rapist. It's mid twist sculpture is still erect. Who else could it be?

A woman's soft pitiless voice stalks her ears. Whispers at her sadness and fury. Sits, crisscross applesauce on the opposite side of the headless man. Stares at Janice.

"He shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry he did it. He was a good guy. Then he wasn't. We took care of him."

"Fuck you."

"That's fair. However, if I know you, and I knew the you of this world, you deserved this. So, fuck you too."

"I'm not of this fucking simulation so my "fuck you" stands. Capeesh? I deserved this? You're fucking animals."

"Some of us are. Some of us aren't. It takes a piece of shit like you to expose other pieces of shit, or so it seems. The guy who just raped you? He seemed nice. Reasonable. He was a great fighter. He survived the wrath of the monster in the dark forest. A true survivor who most of us looked up to. But then he did this. And the stupid fuck probably thought he'd get away with it. He hated the you of this world. But raping anyone is intolerable, especially in the eyes of our Grand Ghost. The Terra. He forfeited his life as soon as he made you his fuck dolly."

"I should have been the one to butcher him. How dare you take that away from me."

"You're a prisoner. You have no rights. I punished the man due to the act. I don't care about the victim. As far as I'm concerned, you deserve far worse than what he did to you."

"I'm not who think I am you dumb bitch."

"Oh, Janice. I think you are at heart. I think you would've set the monster free in the fairground. You would've lied to all of us for power. You, yes, you would be responsible for those souls nailed upon the trees of the dark forest and the forever war against the imaginary slaughter house people. Until the Grand Ghost says otherwise, you're our chattel."

Janice sits up. Throws the blanket off to her right. Tries to stand. Almost gets to her feet before the woman lunges and punches her hard in the gut. Keels over on her hands and knees. Finally throws up. Blood drips from a tattoo of a biting mouth on her hip. The crimson rivulets down her inner thigh. Urinates. Sprays and pools at her knees. Begins weeping. Seaman drips into the piss.

Elbow scrapes hold her head in her hands. Grips her hair. Screams like a downward spiral into the layers of the earth. Flops down upon her side. Curls into a fetal position. Balls uncontrollably. The fork tongue Grand Ghost knows she's been broken by the rage and frustration and loss of Patricia and the horrible trespass upon her body.

"So kill me. Just fucking kill me."

"My name's Silvia. You should know if you don't already. I'm not going to take your life, Janice. It's not my place. The Terra will decide your fate, you ugly piece of shit."

~*~*~*~

Yellow white tatters of an ancient slip. Bare feet and ankles bleed from endless walking upon hard concrete and gravel. Crumbles of footpaths. Tramples of bygone shards. Through nettles and the rigor mortis worm eaten religion of dead language debris which is the earthen carcass of history. Fossil of a city. Veridiction.

Wrists sting from a knotted burn. Ghosts pull her along by the rope around her neck. Stumbles and balances. Stubs a toe. Breaks a nail in the dispute with hard ground. Rages at her captors behind her eyes. Kill them all if she ever finds a chance. All of them. She'll turn their masks into masks of truth when she peels back their flesh.

Day becomes night. Argentate fades to leaden darkness. Traveling stops. Janice is hog tied. Silvia shoves a foul cloth deep into her mouth. Knots a rope tight around her cheeks to keep the cloth down. Left to freeze ten feet away and in plane sight of the Ghosts fresh campfire. The flames mock her as much as Silvia has. Sometime during the night, a Ghost man trickles piss onto her back. Laughs like caries.

The morning begins with a painful steel toe boot crack to her ribs. The face rope and hogtie is let go. Two Ghosts brutal hands haul her to her feet. As they continue through the dead city of Veridiction, Janice is spat upon, over and over. Someone says, "her loins smell like Pete's breakfast."
Wonders what that means. Were her and Pete a thing in this simulation? Is Pete undamaged in this interpretation?

They walk along overpasses and train tracks. Feet are missing toenails. Won't stop bleeding from deep cuts in her heels and ankles. Every step's a wince. Every tug of the rope, a trip. A knee scrape. A battle against being dragged through stone jag and gravel compression and crumbles of concrete.

Witnesses an underpass of tall grass beyond a parapet like a tiny valley island in a tidal wave sea of city. Notices a single van laying in the field surrounded by flat boulders. A giant "J + R" in the centre of a heart is cursively written in red paint on the side of the rectangular vehicle corpse. Thinks the letters should be "J + P."

Eventually, Janice is fed water and some kind of leathery jerky meat. Likes the spice in the morsels. Wonders what kind of animal or human she's eating.

A Ghost mask man takes her rope. Pulls her toward him. Breath like shit. Watches his coffin hole eyes. She decides to urinate on her feet. Splashes his shoes. Flings piss from her feet onto his clothes. Shakes his tatter mask head. Swings a fist at her face. Janice ducks. Lunges toward him. Dodges the second fist with her hands tied harshly behind her back. Falls toward him. Teeth find his jugular. Bites down like chewing a freezer burnt piece of overcooked steak. When he pushes her off, his Adams apple rips out. Dangles between her teeth. Deep mist of blood sprays her face. The Ghost falls to his knees. Dies as his torso hits the ground. Janice spits the Adams apple to her left. Stares at the other Ghosts who remain still. Smiles at them like she's asking, "who's next?"

Silvia has her flail out as if she means to kill her. Considers such. The woman Ghost's mask smirks. Puts such away. Nods at Janice in acceptance of the situation. Another Ghost walks toward Janice with a baretta drawn. Silvia stops the man with a look. Holsters the gun. Goes back to eating his jerky lunch. Silvia takes the neck rope. Nods again at Janice.

"If you're not careful, they might end up fearing you. I've only ever watched Terra do something like that. How did he taste?"

"Fuck you."

Silvia pulls her mask off and hood down. Lets her long messy blonde brown hair swarm her patchwork shoulders and chest. Brushes the straw-ish tethers behind her small cheeky smirky face. Smiles dimply crooked.

"Perfect response, former Grand Ghost. I'll tell you what, if our Terra lets you live, you'll have my respect."

"Fuck you."

Silvia smiles like the smell of orifices.

~*~*~*~

The dark forest looms like twists of broken osteal fingers on the horizon. Others are camping at the border of the menacing kraken roots. Mix of laughter and screams vibrate the distance before her.

Notices the name of the corridor they're pulling her and her wounds through. Holden Street. Shivers as the temperature seems to change upon her sweaty physicality in this place. The howl of the wind is like a hairless dancing djinn making war with existence. Blows under her slip. Knows her nudity like too many icy hands. Feels the street like a spirit. Wants to flay every skull mask face. Scalp heads. Like her Platonic epistemology opens a window in her mind. Shows her how to make gunpowder out of saltpeter and guano and charcoal and urine, like she always knew how. Looks up at the hairless albino sky. Shivers but no longer feels dread or sadness. Feels her future taste this simulation's malevolence. Likes it. Understands the her of this place. The one who's bones she found. The head and spine Ferris wheel spokes. When everyday is Hell, you must be the Devil.

Janice watches the suspicious world as the travellers make way to the camp. Notices other prisoners bound in ropes. Her captors close the warehouse distance with the forest swiftly. Recognizes those in knots and wretched white yellow crimson slips like her's. They're her first reality Ghost underlings; what's left of them. Don't look like they have much time left to exist. Beaten mistreated and driven like slaves made to suffer. None of them seem to recognize when they witness her. Her face must be a camouflage of bruises and blood. Smiles like a Judge with a verdict at them. Witnesses their knowledge as each gains a tiny smirk and a silent nod in her direction. The only prisoner Ghost who doesn't seem kind to her appearance is the one called Glare. Stares like she wants to kill Janice. This young Ghost is mostly bald, now. Her rainbow hair has been torn out at the roots. She's also missing an ear. Looks like both her hands are middle fingerless. The Ghosts of this world don't fuck around when it comes to breaking perceived enemies. Janice feels sorry for Glare. Her mutilations are a failure of Janice's reign as Grand Ghost. What she did and what she didn't do has led her people to this horrible place. She'll lead them out. She will destroy this simulation as she has been doing in her own mind for hours, watching the dead sky, never looking forward but also never tripping around such thoughts. Something inside is coiling around her soul. Like an inner sense materializes. Watches. Can smell an overpowering gunpowder sulphur. It's coming from her sweat and blood. Rage.

Breaths and is sat down, crisscross applesauce with the other prisoners. Janice, still smiling, whispers to the Ghost beside her how to quickly and quietly untie the knots holding their hands behind their backs. Doesn't know how such knowledge has bubbled to the surface of her thoughts. Didn't know she knew.

"Like a magic trick. Use the fingers they won't notice. Just loosen each fibre in this old rope. One little bit at a time. When the hour comes, we kill them all. Capeesh?"