Remembering. It's like a tempest within a blizzard of fog. A powerful storm within a powerful storm where there's no reprieve from the blasting winds of memory. Deafening order of madness wading chin deep in the recollection of a horrible event.

Knew she was going to die the moment her idea to stop David Leonard entered her mind. This is the memory she breaths in and out of her thoughts. It was her whole existence when she was a prisoner of David in the empty city simulation. The agony of forgetting and reliving those awful moments like they were the first time, again and again.

Another horror cut deep her vision. Watched one similar to herself jump from the top of a crumbling building over and over. Exploding upon cement. Not her. Someone else. A different Terra.

But for this Terra, the real dread was Muerte. Muerte killing Paula. Muerte killing Lord. Killing them all. That endless shadow who would come out of the darkness until it was the darkness pressing on her skull, crushing her subconscious with it's hard fingerling hands and suffocating girth. Her ghost or whatever imagination she might have been was made of all that she was in that empty place within her dead ashen body at the bottom of the mire.

And so Terra relives her death for the first time since waking up. It disrupts her window watching from the fourth floor of the hospital. The world beyond the glass of orange red brick and grey black concrete and forest green grass and oceanic sky all swirl into the darkest parts of her mind as the distant horizon burns out. The weight of her body's too much to bare. She witnesses a horsehair coat laying on the floor of an apartment across the street and wonders if it's really there. Not her's. Fish eyes blink at her from that apartment in her murky direction. The gravity of the ground sucks. The fish eyes close. Nothing's there.

She's a phantom. A memory that remembers how she saved the city and other imaginary simulations. Exploded a hole in the Leonards tyrannically imposing base of operations with C4. Found the main WMD room. Pressed a crimson button and typed upon a stiff keyboard and locked herself in the main weapon area behind interior walls made of four foot Wolfram. The Leonards weren't expecting her. Not alone. Remembers she carefully disconnected the payloads from the weapon system. Unscrewed thin square bone white panels and pulled green glowing motherboards from dark metal cavities to find twisted lids above compartments of doomsday gasses ready to be mixed at the touch of another dark red button or a serious fuck up by cutting the wrong wire or the right wire. Such a misstep would bring about the end times. There were ten flaccid cords per weapon that she knew had to be disconnected in a certain order to shut off each missile individually. The worst of the wires was at the beginning of each repeating pattern. The first wire that she had to cut was invisible to the human eye. Somehow Terra found it each time by noticing its shadow among other shadows, which was somehow visible to her. After wires, hands became sore. Tight pickle jar like lids were twisted from inside each missile to release the harmless gases that weren't yet activated with the type of electricity needed to automate the apocalypse. She was in that room for hours. Sweat through her tank top and jeans and socks. Rosy cheeks. Disheveled sticky hair. Skin slick and drippy as though her body was covered in lubricant. She must have melted off ten pounds in the heat of the situation. Thirsty.

Flannel coat was draped across a dismantled missile like a saddle upon a finless shark. The banging and rattling noise of the Leonards trying to get into the room to stop her surrounded her every exit. They wanted to kill her. Badly. And she wanted to kill them.

When all the missiles were forever destroyed and all the gasses were whispered into the air, she found a crowbar. Smashed every console and hologram device in the room. Alphabets and numbers and binary operators laid underfoot everywhere. Crumpled plastic and thinner shards crunched under her boots.

Breathed hard and fast. Didn't stop to calm down. Could've if she wanted to. Could've sat and waited in this room to die if she wanted to.

But the Leonards were now vulnerable. With their main weapon gone, the Ghosts could've been in position to attack David and Michael. But no. She was alone. Garret and Patricia and Reaper abandoned her. Disobeyed her authority. She left Garret messages. He never responded. She'd never know if he ever did. Maybe he deleted them without listening. Would he do that?

She remembered thinking that her whole relationship with Garret was, in the end, nothing. He trusted her when it was convenient for him. And so, fuck him. Maybe it was time it all ended. Hard breaths. She could die now if she wanted to. No. Fuck Garret. Fuck David. She's only sixteen. She hasn't experienced a great many things. She's only ever been with Garret. One interpretation. She's only ever lived in Veridiction. There must be a future beyond Garret and David and war. So Terra decided that she wanted to live. If there was a next time, she would live for herself.

She unlocked all the doors to the room and fled through the only exit that had been silent on the other side. Big mistake. The enemy was waiting in large numbers. Blue clad armoured armed soldiers met her as soon as she exited the weapon area. She was like a skinny vicious spider crawling the walls and attacking all at once, breaking bones and bashing throats out with steel toes and fast hands. Terra took a bullet in the muscle of her thigh and another exploded in her shoulder but she ended up crushing them all as she screamed tears down her face at the pain. As some of the Leonards fell with their jugular's missing, she took their guns and used their own bullets against them. There was hope. She could make it.

Why didn't she bring her own gun? She did but she forgot it in her flannel jacket that was still laying upon a missile. Spits on a dead Leonard. Calls herself stupid and continues out of the room and down the hall.

A naturally ghastly Gibson reverb penetrated her soul as fingers in patterns upon a Vox Continental keyboard and the touching of sticks upon a Mod orange Ludwig drum kit hypnotized her sweaty, bleeding anxious walking body. The song chopped her mind and split it with a fireman axe and a double bladed battle axe. She walked through a particular hall within a particular hall. Was a murderer taking steps of shadows upon family members. Reunited in a mist of paranoia with Patricia and Garret in life's role playing game. Lovers like friends and like parents and like traitors and like enemies. Doors on all sides. A sister as a brother. A final visit payed. She murdered her father and wanted to fuck her mother. No safety. No birthday. She'll never look into her best friends eyes again. The terse insanity beckoned her as the music choked at her mind. She ran down the hall.

Then she came across David Leonard. Well, a version of David Leonard. His head was familiar but his body was a massive sword wielding bald white bear. The creature had a green cape and wore a big black dog collar.

The collar forced Terra out of the memory for an instant and into another memory. One unfamiliar from the vantage point of her present recollection. She's holding a dog collar in her hand looking at four carpenter nails in a wooden wall upon a desolate street. Turns to a glass window but has no reflection. Places the collar back on one of the old bent rusty nails. Thinks to herself she's no fucking dog. The recollection ends.

Terra and the David creature stood watching each other. It licked its lips and panted and grew an erection. Terra watched the foreskin pull back and the sculpture head expose. Sculpture was white and had small brown freckles. The creature's scrotum hung like two deflated skin balloons behind a smiling tailgate truck. She lifted her repurposed gun and rapid fire shot in the one spot. Exploded the sculpture and scrotum of the beast into morsels. It stood still with a smile on its face and a hole in its crotch. Wobbled. Collapsed like a slowly falling piece of brain damage, nose first into the polished cement floor. All the blood gushed from its body from between its legs. Terra stepped over the black red puddle and walked down the hall.

She came to a T and recognized where the quickest exit was. The Leonards would be expecting her to go that way. Or maybe the other way since they would be expecting that she would know that they'd be waiting. Stopped overthinking because there were cameras everywhere and they'd know where she was going regardless of which corridor she chose. Terra turned right and ran in the direction of potential freedom. She didn't get far.

Another David stood in her way. This one was all human but much more physically endowed than the David Leonard that she had witnessed. He was dressed in green spandex from neck to green leather boot. Green cape. He wore blue sunglasses and held a glowing fire white sword. Terra immediately shot him in the eye. The sunglasses and the back of David's head exploded, revealing a black crimson void and one green glowing eye. The eye that she shot began growing back almost instantly. Terra was horrified by the sight of the squishy orb squirming its yolk back into a reverse disintegrating soft pupil shell. But then the David thing dropped its sword and became a marionette of arm flailing seizure. Collapsed to its knees. Fell on its stomach. Its brain leaked out of the eye hole where the eye burst open again. He died like a failed experiment.

Terra took a step to continue her escape. Felt something pierce through her back. Watched a white glowing sword come out her stomach. Screamed. Her blood sizzled. Thought her insides were on fire, which they were. Began to pass out as she felt a pin prick in her neck. An injection of something from whoever was behind her. Woozy. The culprit moved from her back to face her. Groggy. David Leonard stared at her so closely that he placed his lips upon her lips. He kissed her. He smiled. His breath was very minty. Watched his sleepless eyes as the vignette closed over her consciousness.

Startled awake on a cold metal table. Tied down. Completely naked. Wrists and ankles and throat were caught in thick metal bracelets welded to the sides of the table. Latched on her skin so tight, her feet and hands were numb. Felt a warm liquid drip beside her crotch and from her loins. Noticed David Leonard zip his pants up in front of her. He sleeplessly smiled. She gurgled out a scream. Passed out again.

Time must have turned like an urn in a columbarium. She woke to a blinding light and Michael Leonard. Held a bone saw in his distorted hand. Talking. Witticism. Laughter. Bastards. She thought that now would be a good time for Garret and Patricia to come through the doors with Ghost guns blazing. Kept thinking "please" as a last word in a language she wouldn't need after her death. They weren't coming because they never came. Thought to herself that Garret never really loved her. Felt used and hopeless and afraid. Prepared herself for what she knew was coming. Gurgled out a vulgarity.

"Fuck you."

With no warning, her wounded belly was cut completely open. Intestines were pulled out. Screamed and in that moment Michael found opportunity. Sawed off her jaw, stroke by osteal stroke, back and forth. She remembered staring across the room at someone who wasn't there before. Someone....who looked like Judith. Why wouldn't she do something? Why? Oh. That was the Judith under David's spell. The dark forest monster. Not her sister.

Her existence became unfathomable pain. Extreme pain. It was like lava being poured over her body, over every molecule. Thumbs pushed her eyes into the back of her head. But death never came. She was conscious for all of it. Her mind collapsed and jolted back up and crumpled again, over and over.

Eventually, she found a way to hide in the back of her mind. Was released from her epistemological connection to her body. The chemicals that kept her conscious had no power over the severing of her being. Her brain patterns must have changed because once she was a passenger within herself, the physical torture ended. Did she give up? Something did. She was now a shadow in the background among many other shadows. Thought she might be finally dead. Maybe she was. Could still witness her body's surroundings but held no sway in reaction to action. There was no more cause and effect, maybe there never was and Hume was right.

Michael, the bone saw man, was pleased with himself. David shook his hand. They were laughing.

"Muerte."

Whatever took control of her had not existed within her before. It was like a foreign essence had been injected into her dying veins and birthed through her suffering. It was the other shadows that told her this. Something external was claiming her body and her mind and her knowledge.

Michael injected her again with more chemicals. He said, "just a little more resurrection serum for the tasty treats!"

Then her body was unlatched. Slid itself off the table. The body survived two days and nights of torture and regeneration and torture and regeneration and torture. Eternity trapped in a lineal cage.

Dressed in the same clothes she arrived in. Tight jeans, gross tank top and the forgotten flannel jacket. Discarded her underwear and socks, which her body knew was not something worth wearing at the moment. Put her black Munson toe boots back on her soiled bare feet. The Leonards hadn't bothered to wash the gore off her or clean her clothes. She was dressed as something living and dead. Smelt like a raped corpse. Dignity and humanity was gone and what was left was torpefied.

David smiled at her. Sick like the froth from a rabid mouth.

"When you get back, you're mine. The things that I am going to do to you will be of another world. Oh, the fun. All of my fantasies are going to come true."

If Terra could've vomited, she would've. But it was too late for reactions to words and thoughts. She was now David's toy.

What was left of her body walked out of the destroyed Leonard base with every manner of soldier and tradesman staring at the horror of her. They were afraid. She walked past her own reflection. Noticed that her skin was grey and her eyes were glowing a type of green. Scared at the image of what was left of herself.

From the darkness of her interior prison, she heard the word "Muerte" again.

Slouched through the midnight streets of the Leonard district and into the boring beige suburbs. Passed a mini hiking forest and back to the institution of the rolling hills. She was headed for the Factory. And when she made it to the back entrance and pressed her code into the panel and the door opened, she thought about Garret. She was going to kill Garret very soon. Terra screamed into the void of her broken chalice being. No one heard anything. Many other shadows within her consoled her.

Noticed people walking and words floating in the air as she approached hallways and offices and the meeting rooms. The words and rambles were coming from the grey double door main meeting hall which was also a lunch and supper room filled with solid tables and hard wooden chairs that screeched the waxed grey linoleum every time someone sat down or stood up.

When she pushed through the door, breaking the door casing and damaging the metal frame, everyone turned to witness with a look of shock and obvious disbelief. They couldn't believe Terra was alive. She was alive but not in the sense that society views a living thing. She felt like a miscarriage. The miscarriage of a miscarriage.

Paula ran to her and affectionately hugged her. Muerte twisted Paula's head all the way around until the bones cricked and tethers of flesh made spitting sounds as they came loose. The emotionless zombie revenant body dismembered sweet beautiful Paula. Then her boyfriend, Mark. He attacked her immediately. She tore his jaw open and pulled his lungs out through his face and said "boo." Paula's dad planted an axe in her shoulder. She grabbed his face and squeezed his eyes into his head. Past the back of his head. Muerte twisted his body from his neck and smashed his severed face into the floor like a pumpkin, exposing all of it's guts. At that point, she was riddled with bullets. The air was full of rattling flashes and terse blasting sounds. Smelt of death and blood and black sulfur. Muerte's oder was of a spoiled afterbirth. And so everyone with a gun blasted at once, swearing at her, calling her a fucking abomination and a murderous piece of shit and a rotten cunt and everything explicitly imaginable. Except Garret. She saw Garret try to stop the gun fire. Screamed at them that this was Terra, she can be saved, please, she can be saved. Everyone fled when they realized that the bullets weren't going to kill her. Patricia pulled Garret from the room as he seemed to come to his senses. He didn't make the same mistake that Paula did.

Terra lumbered after them. Caught and butchered whoever had the confidence to swing a sword at her face. Necks were broken and severed. Hearts were torn from under snapped rib cages. Spines were pulled from tailbones all the way up to skulls. She killed her friends like they were already meat in a market.

The last was Lord. The awkward conversationalist who would screw whoever her loins were wishing for. Terra never really liked her but Lord was a vicious warrior so she respected her. Was beautiful and savage with her revealing clothing and tattoos of prison sex scenes and drunken misfits dancing on chess boards and ink making love to kings and queens and knights and crucifix fisting bishops. Women and worms and wilderness painted her body from head to toe. She swung a seven pound silver battle hammer that had an etching of two women fucking on each side. Lord pounded the ground in front of Muerte, driving the revenant back time and again. The Venus didn't look it, but she was the strongest of them all.

Lord fought Muerte for a few punishing minutes, keeping the revenant from making her putrid way into the lobby and back into the city. The tattooed Venus was always in a defensive position, never actually hitting Muerte, only keeping Death from continuing down the hall. Eventually, Lord's face seemed so sad. Broken. And then Lord said her final words.

"I'm sorry, Terra. I can't. I can't destroy you. I'm sorry that I went with them instead of you. You have no idea. No idea. I...I...oh, Terra. I wanted to know you but I never figured out how..."

Then Lord stopped fighting. Kneeled before Muerte, crying her eyes out. Her bottom lip was shivering. She lowered her head and then lost it. Muerte tore Lord's skull from her neck without twisting. She pulled it and there was a popping sound and Lord's eyes rolled back and Muerte smiled. Flesh and bone ripped and cracked and fractured apart. Terra, powerless in the dark depths, screamed in agony. Saw something in Lord that she hadn't payed attention to before. What could have been instead of what was. Genuine regret for her interpretation of the tattooed Venus. There could've been something there. Something between them. Oh, to go back in time to find out.

Muerte lumbered into the lobby from the hall, holding Lord's head by its long blue and purple hair. Terra remembered the thought from a depth that might've been like her interpretation of thinking.

"Please, kill me. Kill me. Garret. Patricia. Please kill me."

And they finally did.