The grass and mud below felt tingly, cold, dirty and wet on every step, made worse by my thin sandals and my badly sewn joints and legs.
This frail, small, stitched, pale and necrotic body isn't helping either. How am I feeling tired when I am not even "alive"?
I don't remember much of the why...
...But I know I have to keep doing it.
Because this fear I feel might not make much sense, but is overwhelming.
...Get away from her.
I don't have nor want to question that for now.
...
There is also this "Don't drop the bottle" instruction. Wait, why am I hugging a glass bottle this big as if it was a baby? Has an inscription... Wait, I can read? Uh, what does it say... "Energy Potion...". Looks like... Ewww, diluted piss! Why does it have to be that weird yellow! And something else...
Oh, I am hugging 2 books too. Well, 20, you can definitely read.
Well, I am a bit tired of running. I should...
...Get away from her
No, not now!
...Get aw...
..ay fro...
...m her...
By Alifae, this tiredness is greater than the fear.
I should drink the potion at least. Well, open the bott...
...Why did my arm go to my...
Hairpin?
I have... Uh, what a weird hairpin. Too big to be a hairpin. Is...
A... Bone? Has some weird intricacies, this ring nudge in this extreme, my name "20" carved on it and this haircomb thing that helps with staying put in my hair... and... Huh, a note. What does it say?
> In case you don't remember anything, read the brown book
Well, I don't remember anything really, so might as well... Uh, what does it say on the other side?
> Keep running until you cannot see the big house.
Big house? What?... I must have been running away from that then. "Her" must be from there? Well, it is night time and this damned foggy rain doesn't allow me to see anything anyways, so I guess it counts. At least the stars above illuminate the mist enough to help check for shapes.
...
I should keep on the run just to be safe.
Well, back to my hair, you big bone hairpin, and back to my arms, books and bottle.
I have to keep doing this.
...
And keep.
And...
... (Come on, 20, you can do this)
...
(My feet feel so dirty...)
...
(These trees are a bit hard to avoid, but the surface roots and ground being harder kinda gives them away, luckily)
!
My foot! It got stuck in that dumb root! Oh no no noOO...
{Plaf!}
Auch.
Well, doesn't hurt that much, even if that should have absolutely detached my head from my body at the ver...
Oh
It did get cut off.
Haaahhhh...
Is gonna take a...
While...
Body, wake up wake up. Yes, get up get up...
Left footsie, come to body... hop! hop!...
Now body, step with the stump of your left leg that litt... No, left... I SAID LEFT... Yes, left leg over there, step with force...
Excellent!
Now, body, my head is right here. No, here, to your left, more to your le... No, too much, a bit to your right, PERFECT, now come here slOWLY AUCH, DON'T KICK ME! Come SLOWly here you go! Now grab me and put me back to my pl...
Wrong angle! I see my back by looking down! Alright. Grab, spin it half a turn, PRESTO, all good.
Now, onto the books.
Dirty, wet, but salvageable...
wait
THE BOTTLE!
It... IT BROKE!
Nonononono... Okay, the bottom still holds a bit... I can still salvage a bit more liquid. Just a bit of mud, just a bit of mud...
Wait, why do I have to care about the bottle anyways?
> In case you don't remember anything, read the brown book.
...
I hope "her" gave up before me.
Well, time to read that thing.
Hmph! How do I sit... This high root will do as a bench.
With what could I clean it... My dress, or well, this old folded black curtain with a hole in the middle for my head and held with this jute belt that I call a dress could clean it. If it wasn't with mud too.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
Oh, of course, the inside of this rag is still clean.
Green one, get inside my robes. I better put it at where the waist belt is. Now, let's check this other book over here...
!
Has a pencil inside! Looks like a very oversized coffin for a pencil, with the hole further away from the center of the book, where the paper connects.
Hehe, pretty cooNO, center yourself 20! Book! Read book!
...
Huh, is empty? Why would that note tell me to check for a dumb empty bo...!
No, I just opened it from the wrong side. Wait, what does it says? 88 ??p... WHAT?... Ups, upside down. It should have something in the cover or something! But anyways...
Still I don't get half of what it says here. Let's see... "...34 gave me a flower this mo...", no, "...They believed I was crazy...", neither, but did I have friends or what?, "Heating spell", Huh, spell? InterstNO! Bottle, bottle, bottle!... A DRAWING OF THE BOTTLE! It says...
Day 15: LIFE JUICE.
Mother holds "life juice" in big bottle behind wood door in up part of kitchen. Life Juice keep me and brothers moving. Juice goes inside bone bottle. Filled bone bottle keep me and brothers moving for day. More if you do less. Less if you do more. Old juice of bone bottle must go before putting more life juice from bottle.
[There is a drawing of the same bottle with the yellow liquid before being broken into pieces. Below it says "Life Juice".]
[There is also a drawing of the same hairpin she checked a bit ago, bone, haircomb, nudges and all. Badly drawn, yes, but recognizable. It says "bone bottle" below it]
Wait, Mother? Bone bottle?
This big hairpin?
...
Huh, so this ring nudge is actually the space between a bottle and bottlecap.
*Pop*
I should be thankful my sense of smell is almost non-existent for so many reasons. This looks disgusting, like rotten blood or something.
I hope whatever was left from the potion helps me with my tiredness even with the mud.
...
Huh, emptying it felt weird, like if... Drowning? Is that how drowning feels, like if your life was put on a timer?
...
Felt good when I put the dirty leftover of the potion there, albeit now my tongue tastes like mud and grass.
If this is to be believed, this is supposed to keep me "alive" for another day. And judging by the size of the bottle, it seems that I should have been set for at least a month.
... Let's check the start for more clues...
Huh, first page says...
Diary of Necromaton 20.
Knowledge, observations and others here.
Compensates for Forget Me Not side effects.
ESCAPE PLAN DETAILS.
Necromaton? What is that? Am I one?...
20... Well, at least I recall that number being my name, so this must be my diary.
But "Forget Me Not"? "Escape plan details"? What? Uh, "Escape plan details" seems to have been written later with more anger than the other text.
Time to switch pages.
Forget me not, forget me not, forget me no oohh! Swift Legs techniNO! forgetmenotforgetmenotforgFORGET ME NOT! Here you are!
Day 175: FORGET ME NOT SPELL
I have finally mastered this weird spell.
Feels like ages since I learned about it the first time from that green book.
Now I can cast it onto pretty much anything smaller than myself.
Or on myself.
I will be using it to prank 12 and 17 so much with it! It is gonna be great seeing them running around searching something they are holding in their hands!
Haha, this is what you get for being so mean to me all these years!
And I now will win all the Hide and Seek games!
I cannot use it much, as it drains a lot of the life juice of mybone bottleno,filapiphiphylactery, makes me forget about stuff too and mother has been very suspicious as of lately.
Will have to improve my excuse making abilities and be more efficient in my work.
This "Field Spells" book is so cool! I hope nobody snitches that Itookborrowed it.
Specially that dodoohead of 17.
Well, this left me with more questions than answers. It makes you forget stuff? Green book? Field Spells?... Oh, this other one. I will check it later. But first, what about the "Escape Plan"? Why was I escaping in the first place?
...
I will check the last entry. Let's see let's see...
Day 310: OUT
Today is the day.
I must start the fire in the barn from my room with Phantom Reach and Ignition.
Left fake clues to the snitch that is 17 about my escape plan but with the wrong directions.
Should piece the puzzle together when the fire starts.
I should start a fire in 17's room too, but there is no time nor energy for that now.
Path is: Room, kitchen, disposal pipe, unfixed hole in the basement, forest south. When in kitchen, quickly grab the big energy potion bottle now that I left the door to it "accidentally" open this night.
Go to disposal pipe by parts to fit. Then, reassemble and climb to hole in basement.
Activate Forget Me Not and Swift Legs on myself and sprint around the mansion until facing south and go straight to the forest there.
If Mother is not allowing us to leave, I prefer returning to the ground I was raised from.
But if I am returning anyways, I might as well go while seeing a bit of the outside world first.
This is for your dream, 34.
Fuck you Senecé for what you did to him!
[Clear pencil stabs and angry doodles of a big house burning down, with a tall slender pale lady with an elegant dress in front of it also being engulfed by the black flames]
...
By all the gods of the Ichorchate. I was this angry?
...
Why was I so angry?
Backtrack backtrack...
Day 300, Day 294, Day 282... Day 254: I HATE YOU I H...
...
[The page is not very legible. Has lines and scrawls all over]
Day 254:
I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HAAATEEE YOUU FUCK YOU MOTHER FUCK YOU FUCK YOU I AM NEVER CALLING YOU MOTHER AGAIN SENECé
[Very angry scrawling in the rest of the page, with more profanity around]
(At the bottom:) He just wanted to see a bit more of the world. Why did you have to do that to him.
(Almost as a footnote:) I loved you too, 34.
...
...
Why, why am I...
...
Must be this rain that is leaving my eyes all watery, must be it.
...
...
... (My hairpin hurts)
... (how)
...
... I... Something tells me to not check what happened to him. Him?...
...
... I better don't check then.
...
I... I should check the green book instead. Yeah, yeah, I still don't know what that "Forget Me Not" really is or does...
...
So, to my "dress" you go so you don't get wet. And you, greeny, to my hands!
The index says that the Forget Me Not spell is in the page 70.
Page 14, 33... 56, forget me not forget me not foHERE! Page 70. It says...
This spell allows the user to antimemetically conceal any object of one's choosing, even from the user itself.
Also works on the user itself, but its side effects are order of magnitudes more notorious, so this is discouraged.
Writing or other external storage media about the concealed object, and entities under mnestics are proven to be immune to its effect.
It is recommended for users of this spell to keep a diary of their life as to mitigate its side effects, especially if cast in oneself.
Side effects include: Short term amnesia, migraines, headaches, Long term amnesia, total memory loss, ...(More weird related issues)
Method of use: (Complicated series of steps hard to understand well)
...
Oh by Alifae, now this explains these hazy memories. Well, thanks past me for being so smart as to leave the notes around and write the diary. Well, enough time spent with these. Green, give Brown some company. Time to go back in the running.
Oh, what direction was it?
South, right?
Let's see, one of these trees must have moss on it...
I remember moss telling you where the North is, but I forgot how to read it.
My luck be damned.
I just have to keep running in whatever direction.
...
Oops, careful with that tree... And those roots...
...
There are less trees now.
...
I feel tired again...
...
Wait
Where did the trees go?
What is this ground? Feels a lot flatter, like compacted gravel... Did I return to that big house the book said?
Nonononono... You can't have luck this bad, 20!
Wait, a... Light in the distance? In this fog?
And a...
Roar?
ROAR?
IS GETTING LOUDER!
BEAR? DRAGON? I HAVE TO GET OUT GET OUT GET OUUU...
{Spectacular sound effects of truck-kun doing its thing to a zombie}