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A cosmic cockroach. This audiochapter covers chapter 126 of my ongoing novel We’re Fucked.
Cast
I produced audiochapters for the entire three previous sequences, and I intend to continue until the novel ends or I end up sacrificed to some Lovecraftian knock-off. A total of six hours, fourteen minutes, and forty-three seconds. Check them out.
You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.
If you’ve been following my posts up to this point and you’ve done the necessary work, you should have ended up with a killer concept and a promising premise. Congraturation! But this story is still far from its happy end. The following notes, gathered years ago from many books on writing, focus on creating a worthy protagonist that will endure the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and that in the end will either emerge victorious or fail spectacularly.
Ramsés swings the door open, revealing a concrete staircase that descends into darkness. He reaches to flick a switch. With a faint buzz, a bulb sputters to life in a rusty cage, casting a sickly yellow hue tainted by grime and dust. A lattice of pipes, ductwork, and wire mesh panels snakes across the ceiling in an organized fashion, save for a few rogue wires hanging loose. The pipes’ smoothness contrasts with the concrete’s pitted and scuffed surfaces. Deeper within, a chaotic collection of debris, including cardboard boxes, construction material, and old electronics, lies in haphazard heaps like rats’ nests.
My boss steps aside and sweeps his hand, motioning for me to enter.
“After you.”
As I stand at the threshold, dizziness engulfs my senses in a sudden wave. I clutch my notebook and pen as if they could anchor me.
“Have you lost your mind? This isn’t a conference room!”
“I never suggested we were heading to a conference room,” he replies in an untroubled voice.
“Do you intend to hold a meeting in a dungeon?”
Ramsés sighs. He aims his pointing finger at a doorless metal cabinet standing close to the base of the stairs, juxtaposed against a bundle of ribbed conduits. The cabinet houses network switches mounted on racks. Arrays of LED indicators blink yellow within an entangled mass of black cables resembling the veins of a cybernetic organism.
“You’re a programmer,” Ramsés says, “not a computer technician, but you should know what I’m pointing at.”
“That’s a network rack. I think.”
“Correct. Would a dungeon have a network rack?”
Ramsés’ belittling tone irks me.
“It would, if its owner required an internet connection.”
“Leire, I’ve just brought you to the basement level. Not a place for guests, but Jacqueline accompanied me here. Jordi as well. Afterwards, they both continued with their lives, and in the case of your woman, she even decided to quit on her own accord. So please, let’s proceed further. In the end you’ll be glad that you agreed to follow me.”
“Whatever. I warn you, though: if I see any cockroaches scuttling about, I’m out of here.”
“I don’t recall ever spotting a cockroach in the building, but just in case, don’t stare at the floor.”
I step onto the topmost stair, and then the one beneath it. Ramsés follows me in. As his keyring jingles, the door thumps behind me, followed by a click as it locks.
Down the concrete stairs I slog, while my boss plods after me. Our footsteps echo off the walls in a chorus of hollow thuds. I’m inhaling warm air heavy with the scent of neglect: the mustiness of decaying cardboard and the acrid tang of deteriorating electronic parts.
After I step off the final stair, I lumber toward the closest heap of junk, past the network rack and its array of blinking LEDs, as chunks of white styrofoam crunch and shift underfoot. Dust cloaks an overturned air conditioning unit, its casing cracked and its internal components exposed. Two dead flies and a paper cup rest nearby as if someone had nudged debris aside instead of cleaning up. What atrocity has Ramsés lured me into?
As my boss strides past me, the refuse warps the echoes of his footfalls.
“After me.”
We navigate along the perimeter of a junk pile made out of disassembled cabinetry and discarded light fixtures. My foot catches on a random brick, causing me to stumble.
A shimmer of movement on the wall to my left jerks my attention upwards. Near the ceiling, tubes and pipes running parallel, along with a tangle of electrical wires, delve into the pitch-black void of a gaping hole. Perched on its threshold, a blob of cosmic matter pulses with twinkling stars and nebulae, the purples, blues, and oranges ebbing and flowing like a living fragment of the night sky. As the amorphous form shimmies, the edges of the hole warp around this creature, bending inward.
My neck muscles tense up. I whip my gaze from the cosmic critter to my boss’ broad back.
We maneuver through a channel between two heaps of scrap that loom over me. I pick my way gingerly, hoping to dodge any sharp edges that could scrape my legs. My eyes itch from the particles floating in the stagnant air, and the soles of my sneakers stick to the grimy concrete. The ocher light casts jagged shadows through the masses of junk, but ahead, beyond the range of the bulb, only murky darkness awaits. My mind escapes to picturesque havens: a café overlooking a glittering lake, a gazebo in a lush garden surrounded by hedgerows, a rustic cabin with a crackling hearth.
“I can’t stress enough,” I rasp, “how much I’d rather hold this meeting of yours in a proper venue.”
“Noted. Just down this corridor.”
A sour, moist stench, like the aftermath of a urinary tract infection, seeps into my nasal passages and lingers on my tongue. My stomach roils. With each step, the stench grows stronger. I’m about to complain when I notice that the corridor ends in a plank, from a bookshelf or a storage cupboard, leaning against the wall like a makeshift barrier.
I narrow my eyes, and my words escape in a hiss.
“Hey, am I not supposed to notice that you’ve led me to a dead end?”
My boss’ silhouette, which takes up much of the cramped space, marches ahead undaunted.
“It looks like a dead end. That’s the point.”
Either he’s oblivious to my rising dread, or he’s feeding off it like a vampire.
“Sir, I demand to know what we’re doing here. What sane reason could you have for bringing me into this hellhole? Did you intend to take me down? Tell me why, then go ahead and make your move!”
Ramsés glances back, his face a shadowed outline.
“Leire, you’re getting on my nerves.” He grips the sides of his plank. “Give me a hand with this.”
I cross my arms.
“Sure, as soon as I build some muscle.”
Ramsés shakes his head.
“Well, aren’t you the comedian. Anyway, you’re right: you wouldn’t be of much help.”
With a grunt, he heaves the plank aside, and tilts it so it rests against a junk pile. As my eyes adjust to the dark, I glimpse a door. Its layer of paint has peeled and flaked off in patches, revealing the metal beneath.
The stench comes from behind that door, as if an ammoniac marsh were seeping from the crevices. What new horrors lurk in this mausoleum of rubbish and ruin?
I envision my boss as the leader of a cult, one that orchestrates human sacrifices in a chamber that gleams with tools for torture: knives, cattle prods, bone saws, nipple clamps. Robed worshippers, their garbs adorned with profane runes and eldritch symbols, chant in tongues while they chain me to an altar. Flickering torches cast a golden hue over their twisted faces, revealing patchwork scars and soulless eyes. As the acolytes’ chant crescendos, one by one they lunge at me. Their fingernails, curved into talons, rip through my clothing, tearing into my muscles and viscera. They gnaw on my flesh like ghouls. Ramsés, the high priest of this unholy congregation, emerges from the shadows and approaches with a whirring drill in hand, about to offer my brain as tribute to the Outer Gods.
My boss reaches into a pocket of his suit jacket and pulls out a keycard. He swipes it across the door’s handle, and a beep sounds as two green LEDs blink in sync. The lock clicks.
Within me, a primal force screams in warning: we have reached the threshold of Hades. I’m tempted to turn tail, bolt down the corridor of junk, and scramble up the concrete stairs. Instead, risking the loss of dignity and self-respect, I reach out and grab my boss’ shoulder.
“I can feel it…” I whisper, my throat closing up, “something evil behind that door, staring at us.”
Ramsés snaps his head back, then faces me in the gloom.
“Interesting. You may be hypersensitive to electromagnetic fields. Don’t worry: nothing awaits us inside, other than a miracle.”
The door’s hinges groan as Ramsés swings it open, unleashing a fetid reek that singes the membranes of my nostrils, that crawls into the deepest recesses of my lungs, that brings to mind a mound of rat corpses teeming with millions of mucky maggots. Apart from a novel hint of burned dust that could belong to an overheated computer, I inhaled this cocktail of putrefaction before, whenever Spike visited; when professor Bunnyman intruded on my peace through the toilet where I was peeing; when Alberto, transformed into a slimy blob studded with eyeballs, came to warn me about the forthcoming collapse of the universe. Although I’ve covered my nose and mouth with the crook of my elbow, a wave of nausea ripples through my gut.
Ramsés ushers me into his underground realm. The hairs on my nape bristle. When the door shuts behind us with a resonant thump, the blackness wraps around me like a shroud of primordial night.
Author’s note: today’s song is “Stuck in the Middle With You” by Stealers Wheel. I keep a playlist with all the songs I’ve mentioned throughout the novel so far. A total of two hundred and nine videos. Check them out.
Fun fact: the depicted setting is based on a network “closet” located under the psychiatric ward of the hospital where I work. Anyway, check out the audiochapter.
The novel is going on hiatus for about a week or so; my subconscious has spent the last week weaving a short narrative that I’m eager to render into a free verse poem. Since I started this novel in October of 2021, it will be the first break I take to work on a different story.
You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.
If you’ve been following my posts up to this point and you’ve done the necessary work, you should have ended up with a killer concept and a promising premise. Congraturation! But this story is still far from its happy end. The following notes, gathered years ago from many books on writing, focus on creating a worthy protagonist that will endure the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and that in the end will either emerge victorious or fail spectacularly.
I spent most of last weekend, that lasted three days, sick with some respiratory issue. I returned to work on Tuesday only to wake up the next day with a fever, and I tested positive for the flu. I must have caught two separate diseases, but it doesn’t surprise me, because literally every single coworker was going through a respiratory issue of their own. I suspect that when I return to the office tomorrow, I’ll find out that we’re forced to mask ourselves up for the duration of the work hours.
Apart from being sick, I have been significantly depressed. Having to attend family functions due to the holidays only worsened my mood: the noise contamination for someone with a sensory processing disorder, the absurd amounts of food we’re supposed to gobble up, being forced to listen to their mind-numbing opinions, etc. Ever since I was a child, being around family members only made me feel alone. I don’t have anything in common with them, and when they attempt to relate to me, they make it clear that they believe themselves to be dealing with someone very different from the person that exists in my brain.
For as long as I can remember, I have yearned to distance myself from my family, as well as from everyone I’ve known, even putting whole continents between us, but I became a lousy adult with a deficient capacity for self-organization due to my brain issues, so I have never strayed far. On top of that, because my life must be some kind of cosmic joke, I even work with a loudmouth family member, which frays my nerves for most of the work hours. I also suspect that it contributed to triggering at least one of my episodes of arrhythmia. Unfortunately, I don’t work at the kind of office that allows you to isolate yourself with noise-canceling headphones.
Some months ago, I used to make myself available to online acquaintances to have a chat from time to time, but for a good while I haven’t felt like dealing with human beings in any capacity. Having to force myself to interact with people at work only reduces my willingness to do so in my spare time.
Although I’m a thousand words into the current scene of my novel, I’ve had to trudge through the mental fog characteristic of depression, and I haven’t had much energy to do anything other than sit at my desk, read manga, or play a video game. I can’t count how many times I’ve found myself this week shedding tears to a song, often to the same song on repeat. When I go to bed, my brain treats me with elaborate nightmares related to my lost youth and/or failings. I’m nearing 39, and it’s becoming increasingly clear to me that growing old will consist on accumulating more and more regrets and griefs until I break one way or another.
On a happier note, I’ve managed to distract myself thanks to the UEVR tool that a certain “praydog” and his team put together: it turns Unreal Engine games into VR games natively, even though they weren’t made for VR. Obviously the performance of plenty of them will depend on your rig, and I haven’t upgraded to the 4000 series (I’m waiting for them to release the new generation, that will hopefully prevent me from having to upgrade my PSU; the 4090 is an energy hog). However, I played through most of Life Is Strange, that silly teenage drama that released now nine years ago, featuring interesting plot points related to time-bending powers, but also featuring godawful, embarrassing dialogue along with one of the most infuriating, if memorable, characters from the fiction of that era: Chloe Price, a terrible brat that reminds me of my sister when she was a teenager. At least Chloe can use her dead dad as an excuse.
Fuck you, Chloe. I liked you better when your father was alive.
The game also features the following moment, related to beans:
Anyway, playing in VR confuses your brain into believing that it’s more immersed in the experience: scary situations become terrifying, tender moments become heart-warming, and sad moments can wring quite a few tears out of me (in Life Is Strange, the whole sequence involving the protagonist returning to her tween self, and the consequences of altering that past; in Cyberpunk 2077, when I played it in VR, the beginning of the second act, when V finds out that she has contracted a brain guest that may end up replacing her). Also, I’ve had better orgasms with VR sex than in real life. Too bad that it can’t replace intimacy (yet).
Not sure why I felt like sharing any of this information with you, stranger that for whatever reason took time out of your life to read this post. I hope it was worth it.
They don’t crawl, they stride. This audiochapter covers chapter 125 of my ongoing novel We’re Fucked.
Cast
I produced audiochapters for the entire three previous sequences, and I intend to continue until the novel ends or they put me in antipsychotic meds that turn me into a zombie. A total of six hours, four minutes, and forty-eight seconds. Check them out.
I trudge through the hallway, past the vending machines and the bathrooms, and down a flight of stairs into uncharted territory, following a bear of a man. The fluorescent lamps spill their milky light over the shoulders of my boss’ navy-blue suit as he leads me with a self-assured strut. He’s trailed by the stench of cigarette smoke mixed with a musky cologne; yet, even if he were clean and carrying a bouquet of roses, it wouldn’t mask his inherent stink. The fabric of his slacks fits tightly over his rump, straining the vertical seam at its center. I feel like I’m stuck on the highway behind a truck, but instead of an effluvium of exhaust fumes, I risk a miasma of farts billowing in my face.
The pockets of muted conversations, the rhythmic tapping of keyboards, and the ringing of phones die down, replaced by my boss’ heavy footsteps squeaking on the linoleum of a cramped corridor, barren but for an encased fire extinguisher. If Ramsés were about a head taller, his hair would brush the ceiling. Streaks of grime have marred the yellowed wallpaper, as if a janitorial cart had grazed it in passing.
Ramsés turns to speak over his shoulder.
“Jacqueline is stretching out that sick leave of hers, isn’t she?”
What’s with the resentful tone? I have betrayed myself to tail after this pig, and now I’m subjected to his rotten moods? If mommy could shapeshift into a wolf, I’d ask her to take a chunk out of his flabby ass.
“She must have her reasons,” I retort, bristling at the insinuation.
“And what are they?”
“Wouldn’t you know? You’re her boss, after all.”
“She’s been dodging my emails and phone calls. Besides, you’d know her reasons better than anyone, given how close you are.”
“Wh-what kind of relationship do you think I have with her?”
“You know, I have wondered that, how would it even work between you two. But I suppose that the term ‘girlfriend’ suffices.”
When did I let my guard down? To random strangers on the street, I might gush that my lascivious paramour and I indulge in sex rituals that would make any swinger blanch, but I have never wished to reveal such matters to my boss. Though Jordi’s in the know, I can’t picture him sharing the secret. I feel as if the pristine glass of my relationship with Jacqueline has been sullied by a greasy handprint.
Seizing my silence as an opportunity, Ramsés continues.
“So, is she expecting me to fire her?”
“No, she has realized that one must live for better things than filling Excel cells, or however the hell she spent her work hours. She’ll inform you in her own time, I’m sure.”
My boss tsks and shakes his head.
“What a mess,” he says, sounding disappointed. “I’ll have to endure the hassle of hiring and training a new secretary, when Jacqueline was managing just fine. It goes to show that loyalty has an expiration date, no matter how exceptional the circumstances. Take that as a lesson, Leire.”
A presence appears at the corridor’s end. At first glance, my mind conjures mundane imagery: a custodian, a technician. But as I focus, I realize that I’m staring at a figure unlike any other before: a ghost-white creature standing as tall as me. Its form is dominated by two backward-bending stilt-like legs, wrapped in a gauzy membrane that flows like silk. The limbs taper into blade-like talons reminiscent of sleek prosthetics. Atop the convergence of its legs perches a bean-shaped, faceless head, that gazes through a centered eye glossy and black as polished onyx.
The light from the fluorescent lamps, cut into sharp-edged rectangles, glistens on the linoleum through the creature. It’s striding with a fluid grace, as if subjected to a moon-like gravity, in a collision course towards Ramsés. When they should bump into each other, the creature phases through my boss and carries on its march.
A shiver of dread writhes down my spine and coils around my ribcage. I flatten against the wallpaper, yielding passage to this phantom. It glides silently past me. If I were a dog, my hackles would have risen.
A second alien, smaller by a third, scuttles unsteadily after its kin. As the smaller creature passes by, it pauses mid-stride to fix its onyx eye on me. In that glossy blackness, I expect to glimpse my reflection, but instead see a tangle of reeds. The creature glances at its towering companion, then scurries onward to catch up.
“Leire, what’s wrong with you?” Ramsés asks impatiently.
My heartbeat thuds against my sternum, my hands and feet have gone cold, and my brain buzzes from the rush of adrenaline. My boss has halted before a nondescript door at the side of the corridor. His keychain dangles from the keyhole.
“You saw something, didn’t you?” he insists.
I tear myself off the wallpaper. As I shuffle to join Ramsés, I manage to speak in a feeble voice.
“I was just… lost in thought.”
He squints at me, scrutinizing my features.
“I may have brought it up in the past, or at least wanted to do so, but there’s a good chance you’re schizophrenic, Leire.”
“Excuse me?”
“You match most of the diagnostic criteria: you tend to withdraw into yourself, your thinking can become incomprehensible, your grooming and hygiene have been found wanting at times, you experience hallucinations… And you’re not faking: the color has drained from your face.”
I’m tempted to confess that I was fixated on the phantasmal aliens stalking the corridor, and that I won’t dare a glance over my shoulder in case they’re standing behind me. However, while decent people might use such an opportunity to exercise their empathy, this swine’s expression suggests that my mental illness inconveniences him.
I steady myself. I can’t afford to look crazier.
“If I had a brain disorder that glaring, the therapists who listened to me prattle would have spotted it. Even if they had diagnosed me with schizophrenia, though, I’d need to keep a job, wouldn’t I?”
Ramsés shrugs with an indifference as conspicuous as the cigarette stench clinging to his suit.
“I suppose so. I wouldn’t expect any favors from the state; at the most, they’d put you at the end of the line. So, therapy sessions, huh? They must have cooked up some theories about you.”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. When I open them, I force myself to meet Ramsés’ gaze, although I’d find more comfort in a gorilla’s pupils.
“Sir, respectfully,” I utter, biting back the sharp words itching at my tongue, “I want to get through this meeting, finish my work, and go home. The day has been long enough already.”
He twists the key, unlocking the door.
“Good. We’re almost there, after all.”
Author’s note: today’s song is “Sloop John B” by The Beach Boys.
I keep a playlist with all the songs I’ve mentioned throughout the novel so far. A total of two hundred and eight videos. Check them out.
I’m sick with the flu, yet I produced this audiochapter just for you.
Your boss can’t lead you to a meeting if his heart no longer beats. This audiochapter covers chapter 124 of my ongoing novel We’re Fucked.
Cast
I produced audiochapters for the entire three previous sequences, and I intend to continue until the novel ends or I receive a visit from Truck-kun after someone throws scalding coffee in my eyes. A total of five hours, fifty-seven minutes, and thirty-three seconds. Check them out.
You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.
If you’ve been following my posts up to this point and you’ve done the necessary work, you should have ended up with a killer concept and a promising premise. Congraturation! But this story is still far from its happy end. The following notes, gathered years ago from many books on writing, focus on creating a worthy protagonist that will endure the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and that in the end will either emerge victorious or fail spectacularly.
You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.
If you’ve been following my posts up to this point and you’ve done the necessary work, you should have ended up with a killer concept and a promising premise. Congraturation! But this story is still far from its happy end. The following notes, gathered years ago from many books on writing, focus on an isolated aspect of developing a story before you delve into the nitty-gritty of structuring the damn thing.
The Domains of the Emperor Owl 
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