[Center][H2]Feb 14 2020
Day Three[/H2][/Center]

I shake my hands like I’m rolling dice as I loosely clutch the deceased brain matter between my fingers. Hands ironclad and distant at once, like a socially anxious deathgrip, perhaps more accurately called a life grip. Makes me wonder how I ever managed to kill people before. Sure, it was me but it wasn’t really ME. That part of me is dead and bloated.

I’m getting off topic, it takes a minute but I start to feel the knots unravel. My biceps burn like I’ve been trying to churn sand into butter but I am making progress. And after that minute blows away, I take another. Drat. I should’ve bit the bullet and nabbed the tools from my mind palace. Boo fuckin’ hoo, I guess. Too late for that now. Finally, I feel the grey matter give way, with a measly three minutes remaining.

The fatty, muscle decorated organ has disintegrated, unraveling into a haphazard association of Cerebra, one of the most potent resources in the world. I’d recount its many idiosyncracies but I’m the slightest bit strapped for time, with only two minutes remaining until my inner demons descend upon me. I already feel my intestines trembling as they march up the hill, preparing to cross the barrier and meet me here in Innerheim.

So I begin to recite my oath:
[INDENT]So long as I may live
Never again will I be one to give
The innocent a cause for grief
Or the idealistic cause for disbelief
As the paul of nihilism descends
I will be one on whom the people can depend[/INDENT]

At that, the Cerebra finishes melting, bubbling with power as the last of its stillness evaporates before the brain matter slithers up my arms, oozing and fonduing over my flesh before collecting the majority of its mass behind my skull, above my neck, like a symbiotic exoskeleton called to action by the very same duties that I am bound. I feel it, enhancing my sight, granting me the skills of my fallen predecessor, paradoxically making me feel more like myself than I have in a long time and also transcending the very notion of my humanity. Yes, it is good to be amongst The Thinking Men.

And then, they cross the gates. Climbing up from a lower plane, they tumble into Innerheim clumsily, seemingly washing into the realm the way that a shadow stretches off of your body and onto the evening Earth. Mostly, Maleftos seems to have brought a hastily assembled platoon of whatever doubts had been running through my mind at the time. Sure, it’s an affront to my self-esteem, but to make up for they were carrying some remarkably heavy artillery: Dreadsabers and dread grenades. Clearly they were going to attempt to get some cheap shots in by capitalizing on my classic weaknesses of self-doubt and depression. Fine.

“Maleftos you dumb son of a bitch. This is the same bullshit I’ve been dealing with my whole life. I’m over it.”

“You keep saying that, but that has yet to be seen. Soon enough this body will just be another corpse that you mine for Cerebra before we do this dance over and over. Y’know the thing about self-doubt. They kill you today, you kill ‘em tomorrow.”

“Shut up. At first I was gonna kill you because it’s what you’re supposed to do to someone that threatens you. Now I’m gonna kill you because the only thing I hate more than myself is the new Star Wars trilogy.”