“I got no quotes for you. Enjoy.”

-Me, the writer, to you, reader(s).

This concerns Reuth Giapain.

The Forty-Fourth is the third major faction that holds any kind of sway in Blood Falls. Where the Trium Illustricate held corporate power, and the Darah Daging boasted martial might, the Fourty-Fourth concerned themselves with the immaterial things in life. The Arts, The Movies. The Museums. The Mall, though this part is somewhat contested with the Trium Illustricate. Anywhere that the masses converge and entertain themselves, the Forty-Fourth will be the one that provides the food, the drinks, the accommodations, the transportation, the entertainment, and all the background stuff that no one in the public eye pays much mind. And you can pay your entrance fee with anything at all that you with you, so long as it has value to you, or someone else. There is only one ironclad rule in Forty-Fourth Land, however.

NEVER LOSE YOUR TICKET.

Enjoy!

“I feel like we’re going in circles right now.” Reuth Giapain’s crown mouth spoke for the thirtieth time since… forever. That’s how long it seemed since he and Kara—as the Trium Illustricate statue insisted to be called—had set out on the trail of the drifter’s mysterious target. It was a given that the trail would lead away from Blood Falls, but what wasn’t as obvious was where then does one fugitive go in the vastness of infinity? How would one make sense of a lead when time is both your friend and enemy?

This is where Kara was supposed to shine in her role as a tracker. She was given as part of “services rendered”, which Reuth Giapain was all to eager to forget, not after he had to go through with the Forty Fourth and their deranged idea of “normal”. But as his stone-faced companion insist on going the exact same way they have been going with absolutely no deviation in a circle round Blood Falls, one couldn’t fault the drifter from drifting back into some recent memory to escape, if only for a little while.

Out of all the groups Reuth Giapain had the displeasure of working and sometimes fighting against in Blood Falls, he had no information on the Forty Fourth except for what everyone and their mom knew; they were obsessed with making everyone happy, they got the power and influence to rival the Darah Daging and the Trium Illustricate, and if you ever get inside ‘Forty Fourth Land” for whatever reason, NEVER LOSE YOUR TICKET. EVER. This last part was shouted to Reuth Giapain far too many times than he’d have liked, but the warning at least stuck.

There were other things to consider, not rumors spoken but rather the shape of what is avoided in chatter. All who leave are forever changed, and not always for the worse. It is a maelstrom of change, and Reuth Giapain was not fond of such things. Not after what had been done to him, and the others as well. The mouths, when silent, dreams of the past and though a shared mind they are not, still privy to glimpses of what goes on behind closed doors, so to speak.

They need the justice to stick this time. They’ve earned it.

The entrance to Forty Fourth Land was obvious; it was the only thing for miles that had a color scheme besides red, white, black or some variations thereof. It seemed more at home under a Godhome that hosted food deities or trap deities. In such places, diamond-hard candy, radioactive cheese, and chocolate-based lifeforms are much the norm. But it seems the proprietors here opted for blood expies, with platelets, white blood cells, and the occasional prions. It was all very festive and creepy.

“Hello there, welcome to Forty Fourth Land! My name is Forty!” A man—in the loosest sense of the word—walked up to Reuth Giapain and held up a hand for a handshake. The drifter shook his head and the man gave a thoughtful nod before returning back to his unnerving grin without blinking all the while. “I see that you’re new here to Forty Fourth Land. Would you care to go through our complimentary Beginner’s Course? It’s free, and it won’t take long at all!”

"We’re not interested-“

“Of course, of course, who are we to decide what’s best for our guests?! But—and this is important information, I swear—we don’t have the manpower to handle so many people walking in and out and in and out and that’s why we give them the Beginner’s Course at first! But only once, then never again! We swear, on our shining brand of 100% customer satisfaction, that everything you need to know will be covered in the Beginner’s Course! Time is money, after all, hahahahahaha!” The man laughed his head off, literally, with his legs then playing around with the gruesome thing before finally juggling it back into its rightful place.

“Alright, I’ll pay.” Reuth Giapain said.

“Excellent! Now, there are multiple ways to pay to account for all the different kinds of guests, but we can see that you have a unique constitution. We would normally charge each soul individually, but I think special deals should be for special persons. It’s time forall of you to come out and enjoy Forty Fourth Land, in person!”

Reuth Giapain realized too late what the man meant as spectral arms appeared out of the ground and held him in place, with more plunging into his being and tugging on the haphazard matches of the drifter’s soul. With ease, they untangled one into four, and from uneasy order came lively chaos.

“I’m free! I’m finally free!” Re* shouted as he bounced around and about like a circus monkey. “Take that, fucking Abins! I’m going to enjoy dunking your head in hot coffee!”

“I did not see this coming.” *uth fixed his glasses while taking care not to get bowled over by his over-excited… friend.

“I’ve heard rumors, but never anything like this. I do miss my own body after so long.” Gia* said as he sat down and proceed to take a nap.

“…This ain’t permanent, is it?” *pain looked upon his gloves with melancholy. “If it had been that easy to separate us, we wouldn’t have to deal with so much shit.”

“That, is so damn true, brother. What’s the catch? We get cursed into a bear, again?” Re* stopped running around and pointed at the man that split Reuth Giapain into four men.

“We’re hardly anywhere that resembles a forest, not counting places that claim to be a forest. And what bear would live here? They all prefer colder places.” Gia* chimed in.

“Gentlement, we are straying from the matter at hand. You, manservant, hurry on with our orientation so we can be done with this farce.” *uth dismissed the Forty Fourth Land employee with a wave of his hand.

“Right away, scary sir!” The Forty Fourth Land employee saluted and split himself into four identical copies, with one taking their place in front of Reuth Giapain’s fractured self. They each inserted a key into the air and unlocked a portal, graciously letting their charge step through first. Re*, *uth, Gia*, and *pain looked at one another before stepping through their respective thresholds

Re*’s door opened up to a party that just about run its course, with people filing out to their homes, hotel rooms, or whatever corner of the street was warmest with that special glow of street light and smell of urban development. Some holdouts were in their own worlds, holding cups long sapped of taste or anything that could soak a parched throat, but no one came for the punch in these kind of parties. The hope was in company, and with his arm clung onto by a pretty little blonde thing, Re* felt like a million dollars.

"It’s perfect, isn’t it?” The blonde smiled her usual dazzling smile. “You got the world in a platter, and it’s all going your way, every time. You’re the house, the man, the one with the plan.” She stepped back and he stepped forward, never quite apart or in each other’s embrace.

“I’m not satisfied, though. So much for a perfect world.” Re* twirled the blonde and let her fall on one hand only to pull back, earning more cheers from the crowd around them. “If we were lovers, I must really have been desperate.”

“Actually, I was the only one that asked you out.” His focus on her grew and now he saw her lips, pale if not for lipstick; her tears, recently dried, and her smile, forced and hiding behind it fear and pain in equal measure. The light dimmed and the music slowed, and something compelled Re* to look out for once.

There in the darkness was something that consumed the void. The cold of depths could not stop it, nor did it even shrug when the city’s teeth and claws were bared against it. It was a surge of the dead, and it hungered for a relief that never came. They struck the glass and it held, briefly, letting the wave wash over the other parts of the city that weren’t so well-defended. In bubbles were contained the screams, but Re* heard only silence through the water.

The music played no more.

“Who are you?” The man asked his dance partner, only to realize all he had been holding onto was an empty dress, and a note, addressed to him. Inside was a letter with words he couldn’t read, and without meaning to his tears fell. He fell to his knees and hugged the dress as the waters claimed back the deep, and light shone no more

*uth sighed as sea water splashed against his face, freezing and as salty as the day he left it. On land as precarious as where he now stood, a normal man would’ve felt strangely compelled by the rolling waves and deep blue darkness within. It was the promise of eternity, and as many have answered the void when it called them, so too does the sea embrace man as its wayward progeny in a deep and inescapable grip.

He lived then in this forsaken place, where a lighthouse stood and once used for its purpose, but now remain a dying wreck, claimed piecemeal with every gale and every crash of waves that came its way. In it, inside a hut born out of scrap metal, wood pallets and tattered tarp, was *uth’s room, heated by a heater older than the lighthouse itself. Its one good feature was that it made little smoke, or perhaps its smoke was so thin as to be invisible. Either way, the air was more salt than smoke to the man’s nose.

“…on the river did we see, the ocean as it can be. Beauty when the tide comes, and burden when the storm hits. The wreckage uncovered, the secrets laid bare, and memories, most of all, make way for despair.” *uth finds himself muttering these words and more. It was an old habit that refused to die when he was still… whole. He remembers more now the longer he remains apart, and a flicker of hope started as time wore on that it will be permanent, this time.

That being said, he was due company, if things were to unfold the same way as he remembered them, and true to *uth’s words, the sea roared. The waves swelled into titanic sizes, eager to devour all that sailed on it and every other forsaken piece of land that dared to rise above the water’s head. Cuts marked *uth’s skin and longer they became the longer he stayed outside, but still the man waited.

“I see you’ve chosen poorly, as usual.” The voice that spoke this belonged to a man floating in mid-air before *uth, with what looked like steam coming off from his skin. The rest of the man was hidden under armor, its every piece interlocking with every other piece in a finely crafted aegis of protection that visibly warped the air near it. *uth finally moved, nodding towards the lighthouse and turning around without bothering to listen for a reply.

It was a time for words now, before the world ended

Gia*’s door led to an empty room. The wallpaper was yellow with some flower pattern, and though it was day judging from the light streaming through the windows, the darkened shadows suggested overcast or perhaps the beginnings of rain. The air smelled like nothing with the barest hint of dust. Gia* stepped forward and slowly made his way to the only way out of this room; a cheap wooden poor that seemed like it would fall apart from someone sneezing on it.

He turned the handle and fortunately it moved, the hinges creaking as it protested the disturbance of its peace. On the other side was, predictably, another room, but this one had furniture, a clear view of the outside as well as a balcony, and a simple kitchen. There was also yet another door, but Gia* was more concerned with the sky outside. It was blue as far as he could see, but it had no gradient to it, like how a child might color the sky. And as far as the eyes could see were rows after rows after rows of apartment buildings, made in the exact same way, with a vast expansive garden surrounding each and no road to connect them with one another.

As Gia* stepped further inside, a television set crackled to life and started playing, showing a typical news channel setup, only it was empty. Then, with long languid steps, the news anchors walked into view; a man and a woman, taking their places on either side of the news table. Their faces looked both familiar and foreign, like a generic template of what news anchors were supposed to look like.

“Our top story today: a man walks into a room and wonders where he is. He appears to be balding, shorter than average, and has a complex about his name. What’s your take on this, Diane?”

“Well, Jimmy, I think this man is lost in his memories, clearly by how he’s recreating this dream space to look like his past. I think if he stays any longer, he might find himself never wanting to leave.”

“That’s right, Diane, this is one of Forty Fourth Land’s specialties; the Trip Down Memory Lane Experience Extravaganza! Normally, we wouldn’t make this kind of meta-commentary, but it seems this person’ particular mental makeup actually prefers being knowingly lied to.”

“Oh my, that is quite twisted for him. Does he do anything with this knowledge? Like anything at all? I think I would’ve raged quite a bit for being tricked and lied to my face so blatantly like that. What about you Jimmy?”

“I would be tearing up the place, throwing tables at windows and punching the walls, but he’s not doing any of that. He’s at the kitchen making coffee now, of all things. Don’t forget the sugar and milk now, you know you can’t stand bitter things.”

“Silly Jimmy, this room doesn’t have either of those things. Not in the past and certainly not in his memories and even in a recreation like this where he could’ve thought up these two things easily. It seems he thinks he deserves to suffer like so, like some kind of lonesome martyr.”

“What a cracking lad this one is, Diane. I hope he’ll get the biscuits soon from the top shelf. You know how moldy those gets after three days.”

“Well, Jimmy, you know what they say. ‘A late camper is a happy camper’, at least when it comes to sleeping through a blizzard and finding out all of your friends died. I sure am glad I didn’t listen to my friends screaming and running off into the night buck naked. That would have been a scary sight for sure.”

“I think he’s finished now. He’s at the table, he’s got his biscuits, he’s got his tea, so I suppose he left behind the coffee after all. Now, Gia*, ready for your favorite show?”

“… Yes.”

For the rest of time, Gia* watched his show.

It was fun.

It was lively.

It was everything he ever wanted

*pain fell upon passing through his door into a void. Sometimes things comes into view and passes by the man in seconds, sometimes he instead is the one that leaves things in the dust. But they all inevitably leave him alone until a ruin came into sight and somehow, their speeds aligned and *pain found himself stepping onto a green garden forgotten by space and time. Broken statuary and paths slick with moss greeted *pain, but no other life could be seen or heard.

“Upkeep is impossible in a place like this. The hired help keeps getting lost, or eaten, or they never bothered to show up. Fascinating how that works for what used to be the center piece of your life’s work, *pain.” A ghost with no face stepped out from behind a warrior’s statue.

“I’m ready now, unfortunately. You think the late Master will chide me for being late?” *pain took his stance as the ghost took theirs.

“I think the late Master doesn’t give a damn about anything. That’s the great thing about being dead in here, after all. Now, go!”

Fists struck against smoke and so began a trail of devastation. An overhead kick crushed a statue down to its base, while bone-chilling breath turned all it touched into frozen dust. Claws scratched air where a second ago it would’ve rend ribs and a straight punch caved in the last remains of a pillar where a ghostly face smirked in contempt. Their fight reached its climax when finally the bedrock gave way and shattered the ruin into remnants swallowed by the dark, separating *pain and his adversary to their own respective fates.

“I hope I will never see you again, but we both know my luck isn’t that good.” The ghost said while laughing as the darkness embraced him.

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.” *pain said as he closed his eyes and waited for the dream to end.