RELUCTANTLY DRINK THE "BLOOD" ==>

You realize that although you have no desire to do this, it must be done, in order to facilitate the things that must happen in the future. It is a seductively comfortable thought, that the things you are doing are somehow necessary to influence the fate of yourself and others around you, and that fate is likewise influencing you. That the things you are doing are not really being done by you.

It makes this feel less like your own fault.

You and Tracy move almost in unison. You both grab your goblets. You clink them together, and they smile, very slightly. But it's enough. Honestly, that's enough. A tiny smile. You feel your face turn hot, and given that your normal skin tone is hospital wall white, you just know they know your blushing. They smile again. 

You both drink.

It's bitter, more bitter than anything you've ever tasted. The closest comparison you could possibly make is unflavored cough syrup. It moves down your throat like something living. It burns. You start coughing.

YOU: Okay. What now?

Oracle: THE FLUID WILL CAUSE YOU TO BECOME UNCONSCIOUS. THEN, IT WILL FACILITATE YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS IN DISCONNCTING FROM YOUR BODY, AND YOU WILL BEAR WITNESS TO MANY KEY EVENTS AND INTERNAL TURMOILS. THINK OF IT AS VIEWING ANOTHER PERSON'S MEMORIES. OR YOUR OWN. LIKEWISE, YOU MAY ENTER OTHER ZONES OF REALITY. 

Tracy: Oh. Cool.

Oracle: YOU WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO UNTIL YOU BECOME YOUR TRUEST SELF AND AWAKEN... OR FAIL TO DO SO.

YOU: Oh. I don't like that.

Sketch: You may want to sit down. When you pass out, you don't want to fall down.

You do so. Tracy follows. You look at them, and they look at you. You feel brave suddenly.

YOU: Dude, if we, uh, don't make it out of this...

They look at you sharply. 

Tracy: We will though.

Their jaw is tight, and a muscle throbs in their neck. Somehow, you find that beautiful. And that's when you know you're done for.

YOU: Heh. Okay man, we will. But nonetheless, I want you to up and know that, um... I kind of like you, dude. It's alright if you don't reciprocate.

Tracy: I have always liked a guy who can use words like reciprocate without feeling self conscious.

YOU: That's good. I'm often verbose in awkward moments.

Tracy: You may very well have a chance then.

YOU: Is that a yes? I'm aware that this is a little weird for someone as performatively stoic as myself to be unable to understand, say, sarcasm, but...

Tracy: It is definitely an "okay." 

Sweet. You'll take it. 

Things start to get dark. You hear water flowing. You feel incredibly ill.

Everything is very dark. You feel like a brain in a jar. You stay like that for a while. You open your eyes, something you didn't know you could do, and find yourself on an old boat. Well, itself doesn't look old, it looks new. But the make is old. You're facing a dark body of water. You can see shore in the distance. You can also hear voices behind you, elsewhere on the boat. 

What do you do? 

it occurs to me that i had some connection issues last night, did you not actually receive my submission? (I can't for the life of me think of any issues with the content itself)

I'm holding an episode of The Terminal for review. It will probably be posted later this afternoon.

Admin

okay, I'm gonna put up a part later, no command necessary. every time i end up doing something dumb it ends up throwing you dudes off, so ill make it easier on you. 

(thank you again admin, you're more merciful than i deserve.) 

FOLLOW VOICES AND SCOPE OUT SURROUNDINGS==>

The thought comes naturally. That's the only route that makes any sense. 

There's obviously a main person talking, in a weird, almost buzzing voice. This old sailboat is pretty big. You turn around and climb down a ladder. You look out at the direction the boat is heading toward. Huh. Weird...

The sky is a dark blue, it's about an hour away from either dawn or a sunset. But there's an odd, localized patch of complete darkness ahead of the ship. The ship is going straight toward it. It isn't just black, it's that transcendent, utter darkness, the sort that surrounded Apophis when you met Him. It hurts to look at, so you gaze down at the deck. That's what it's called, right? You don't know much about boats. Oh well. "Deck" it is. You see six people sitting around on the deck. You don't recognize any of them, but something in you, probably that stuff The Oracle gave you, tells you. They're an incarnation of The Six. Oh boy.

Judging by their dress, you decide you must be somewhere around... Three hundred years in the past? Four hundred? Well, Washington only became a state in the late 1800s. So more like two hundred years? Geez, you outright suck at this. But you recognize the area as the Puget Sound, so you're clearly not far from home spatially, even if you are temporally. You decide a perfectly good vision is being ruined by your lack of knowledge about your own States history, and resolve to crack some dusty books and really focus on your education at some unspecified point in the future. 

Until then, you decide to get a better look at the six. 

The one you instinctively recognize as THE SEER is engaged in conversation with someone you arbitrarily recognize as THE SCRIBE. The Seer is a thin Asian man you'd guess to be in his twenties. His hair is cropped short to his head, he's wearing an oversized suit jacket that is a blaring, godawful yellow, and you can tell from here that his teeth are crooked. He seems to have a lisp. The Scribe is another young man, pale and shaky looking, with wire glasses and incredibly wild brown hair. He looks fragile. 

To their side, someone you know is THE APOSTATE is sleeping. She's a young woman in brownish gray rags, and she's snoring. Something about her makes you feel uncomfortable, and it's not just the hatchet she's clutching like a teddy. A faint smile rests on her face. She looks almost corpse-like. 

THE KNIGHT is polishing a silver bayonet. They're Native American, you think? They wear a weird cloak, and their face is painted with some green, glowing substance. Like a skull. It looks absolutely metal. Their hair is in a bun. A young boy, maybe ten, is sitting beside them. He looks scared. He's THE HEIR, whatever that even means. 

Finally, an old man stands at the front of the ship. He has a long gray beard, and a weather-beaten face. He's gazing into the darkness, which is odd, since he's wearing a blindfold. THE HERMIT, you guess.

Well, The Seer is still talking. You decide to just listen.

Seer: And, again, I thimply CANNOT BELIEVE that we are doing thith.  

Scribe: I'm aware, my dear. You have made that little factoid unbearably clear over the past half hour.

Seer: Okay, yeth, that'th fair, I guethth I detherve that, but thtill. It'th poththible that I'd be a little lethth upthet had you not knocked me unconthiouth to bring me here. 

Knight: We did what we had to. Your assistance is imperative in defeating Apophis. 

Seer: Okay, and that'th a fantathtic thentiment, but we're thtill all going to die, probably. 

You realize with a start that he's right. You're in the past, with a past incarnation of The Six, and you know for a fact that they're doomed to fall at the hands of Apophis. And they're going to fight Apophis. 

Uh oh.

What do you do? 

LOOK FOR TRACY==> 

You decide changing the past isn't something that's worth your time, given that it's literally not possible. What was that movie? Twelve Monkeys? With your luck, you'll end up causing the past. Like Bruce Willis. You decide to look for Tracy. Only partly because you want to work out the foundations of whatever your relationship is. You try not to kick your heels and giggle. 

You succeed.

Mostly.

Okay, that's enough messing around. Looking for Tracy. You scan the deck, turning 360 degrees. Yeah, they're not on the boat. You realize suddenly that you don't actually have much reason to believe that they'd be in the same place as you. If place is the correct term. That said, you both drank the same stuff, so you can still hope that your paths intersect later. You'll keep an eye peeled for them. Not just to sort out this will-they won't-they NONSENSE 

Okay, yeah, that's why. That guy's still talking.

Seer: Look, okay, I'll aththume that you're all jutht thtupid, and ekthplain thith to you like you're prattling children.

Scribe: I'd love that. 

Seer: Okay, that willful intholenthe thing ithn't ath cute ath you think it ith, tho cut it out.

Scribe: :)

Seer: ... Anyway.  I'll jutht reiterate for you, thince you're all idiotth, apparently-

Knight: How considerate

Seer: Okay, pleathe hold your thtupid commentth. Thith with not a thituation where we're probably going to die, that wathn't even clothe to accurate , I apologithe for that. Becauthe the way my Theer powerth... Yeth, yeth, laugh it up, I can't pronounthe my own mythic roleth name, I have a thpeech mpediment, wow, I had no idea, thankth.

He's directing that last tirade at The Apostate, who is smiling and raising her hands in mock apology.

Apostate: Hey, nothing against you, lisping caricature or otherwise, I have nothing but respect for you. 

Seer: Rethpect, wow. Alright. Where wath I? 

Scribe : Your powers, dear. 

Seer: Oh, yeth, thankth. I can thee, um, poththible futureth. Like, the future ithn't thet in thtone, I alwayth try to make that clear. But, like... There ithn't even a poththibility of thirvival. We might thucceed, in a thenthe, but then we die anyway. 

The Hermit turns, cocking his head and smiling.

Hermit: Than we die, but succeed.

The Seer nods. The Scribe clutches his hand. Aw, another Seer and Scribe are together. You make a note to inform Wren and Diana of the fact that their relationship is validated by prophetic recurrence. Uh oh. 

It starts to feel very cold. Colder than before. It was almost nice before, but a deep chill comes from the patch of darkness ahead of the ship. The ship is beginning to sail into it. You can feel Apophis. You're afraid you might do some sort of award winning dive over the edge and into Panic City.

How do you avoid doing some sort of award winning dive over the edge and into Panic City?

DON'T FALL IN ==>

Oh man, you hadn't even thought about literally falling off the boat. You decide to at least forestall the rapidly encroaching panic attack until you're on solid ground. Freaking out on a boat sounds like a seriously dumb way to die. 

You're not actually sure if you can literally drown. Probably you can, though. The universe seems to have recently began operating on the premise that horrible things are more likely to happen than good things. Jokes on the universe, though. You're catching on to the rules. You feel very self-satisfied at the notion that you can somehow hack the laws of existence by being sufficiently genre-savvy. 

There, a train of thought that distracted you for a while. That might be all you get.

You're fully in the darkness now. Black water below. Black sky above. And you can feel Him, genuinely feel Apophis. Like a worm inside of you, encircling the core at the center of the apple that is existence. Wow, what a dumb metaphor. Okay, geez, thinking with your brain. Straight. Thinking straight. Thinking...

Seer: Oh no. No no no. Do you feel that?

Scribe: We all feel it, dear.

Seer: Not the thame, you don't. You haven't Awakened. You... Only half of uth have even Awakened, we cannot be out here, thtupid, thtupid. 

Knight: My bayonet has the venom on it. The Oracle assured us that would be enough to kill Him.

Seer: You're not Awakened, the little kid ithn't Awakened, my, uh, "conthort" ithn't either, and we're out here on a boat. We're on a boat! Why are we on a boat?!

Hermit: In Egyptian Mythology, the sun god Ra rode a boat every night, in his quest to battle the serpent Apep, or Apophis. It felt fitting.

Seer: I wonder how "fitting" you'll find it to be when I fall off and DROWN. I CAN'T THWIM. AT ALL. 

The Hermit begins to laugh, only to be abruptly cut off by a black tendril slamming into him. He staggers to his feet, blindfold slipping on his salt-bitten face, choking on his own breath. He abruptly rips off his blindfold, and... Something comes out of his eyes. It's like your brain skips around it, trying to avoid directly noticing what it is. It blasts at the tendril, which burns away.

Three more take it's place. Of course. 

Everything collapses into chaos. His Eye opens. It looks at you directly. It shouldn't be able to do that.  It does, though. The Scribe and The Seer fight in unison, the Seer using some sort of prognosis to dodge Apophis' attack before He even begins. The Scribe throws knives.  The Hermit flies around , firing beams of... Whatever he's firing beams of. They fight well, in the same sense a cornered rat could be said to fight well. It's sadly predictable who falls first. The Heir slips and falls into the reach of a tendril.

And then he's being held high up in the air.

And then he's screaming as he falls into the water, and the water is coming alive and swallowing him, while the cosmic infant laughs.

The Apostate screams in rage, flying at the eye, hitting it, doing some real damage it seems... And then the eye glows yellow. She falls onto the deck. The ship begins to burn.

The Scribe is next, hurling himself in front of the Seer. The eye glows, and they turn to dust. The Seer screams in rage, lunging for a tentacle and slamming into the mast. Dead? No, you don't think so, judging by the groan they make. You realize that the Hermit is gone too. Sucks. That leaves the knight. 

Oh.

A silver bayonet clatters on the ground. It shines a weird green. The venom they were talking about? A strange silence settles over the ship. Everything is still, and the fire rises.

A voice breaks the quiet.

Seer: Not dead yet. Come here, kid. 

YOU: Me? 

Seer: Yeth, you, geniuth. Come on.

Huh. What do you do? 

GO TO HIM ==>

You cross the  burning boat, walking over to where the mast teeters incessantly, and The Seer is lying. 

YOU: I, uh... Didn't know you guys could see me. I thought this was, like, a vision type deal.

Seer: No, home of the otherth could thee you. Jutht me, thorry. 

YOU: And how can you interact with me, exactly?

Seer: Well , I'm not acthually a perthon, you know. Jutht the memory of a perthon. Think of where we are now ath, like, the univethe remembering thomething. 

YOU: Okay, yeah, how can you interact with me though?

Seer: Theer powerth? I don't know. I'm a fake dead perthon, I don't have, like an ekthact reading on everything! I'm, like, an algorithm bathed off of the ekthperienthes a dead perthon had, I literally jutht became genuinely thapient, get off my back. Jutht think of yourthelf ath Ebenether Thcrooge, and me ath the ghotht of Chrithtmath patht. 

YOU: Wow, I suddenly understand less than ever before. 

Seer: Honethtly kid, thut your mouth and let me be your reluctant quathi-ghotht mentor, jeeth. In a couple minuteth Apophith blowth up the entire boat and I die, tho let me jutht thay my piethe and then retht in peathe okay? I want to tell you the thecret to Awakening and offer you thome wordth of encouragement and I can't do that if you're compelling me to thtart having a new tantrum every thikthteen thecondth, with your relentlethth thnark 

You roll your eyes, realize he can't see you doing that behind your shades, remove them and roll your eyes again.

YOU: Okay, man. 

Seer: Look. Awakening ith acthually jutht becoming your truetht thelf, okay? That'th what you need to underthtand. I mean, yeth, you get thick powerth, but thtill. That'th why tho often you Awaken after traumatic ekthperientheth. Cutth through the crap dithracting before. Which ith why I'm thtill a catty jerk, even after Awakening. I'm my ultimate thelf. It'th me. 

YOU: So I should be ready for a journey of self discovery. Got it. 

Seer: You made it thound really lame, but ok. 

YOU: So wait, how did you guys end up saving the world? Everyone looks pretty dead.

The Seer rolls his eyes

Seer: Captain Deuth Ekth Machina ended up doing all the hard work. Apophith bathically bathed Himthelf out of existence after he got poithoned. Jutht abtholutely terrified of death, to a perilouthly rudenathty degree.

YOU:...rudenasty? 

Seer: Latht thing before I get thet on fire. If it'th any contholation, I died happy. Ath patently abthurd ath that may thound. 

YOU: ...how? 

Seer: Becauthe I thaw the future, further than I had ever theen before, and I knew there wath a way that everything could be okay. Okay. Thee you, kid.

The Eye blares yellow. The ship erupts into flames. You run, only to realize that the fire can't hurt you, since you're a memory ghost or whatever. It sure does feel warm, though! The Seer is gone. You wonder what deus ex machina he could have been talking about --

Oh. 

The Apostate climbs up the edge of the ship. She's on fire. Literally, her clothes are on fire, her hair's on fire, she is actually burning. But she shows no sign of injury. She walks over toward the Knight's body, picking up the silver bayonet. Her face is like a religious icon in it's purity and rage. There's something purple about her, even though nothing she's wearing is purple. Really there's nothing purple about her at all, but it's like a mild form of synthesia is surrounding her, like a Technicolor halo. You feel a little insane. 

She scurries up the mast like a squirrel up a tree. A tendril reaches out to grab her, and she runs on top of it, leaping straight for the eye.

The mast collapses . She stabs the eye. 

He screams, pain and rage and desperation. He screams so loud you can feel your bones shifting in their places. One last burst of yellow light. The scream of someone angry enough to set Himself on fire just to burn someone else and then The Apostate is dust and the boat is dust and somehow the water is dust too, blasted outward and then sucked within itself until you think, so this is what a black hole feels like on the inside. 

You open your eyes to find Sketch Hawthorne's face a few inches away from your own. Almost as terrifying as the evil god.

What do you do?