I would love to join your cult. I will bring some homemade food as well, if anyone has any allergies let me know :)

Jesse

Starting a cult is seriously tough work.

When you’re juggling multi-consciousness group therapy, honing the skill of astral projection and alternative universe travel, catching up on missing work from an entire year, and busy dodging adoptive ghosts in the hallway, it’s nearly impossible.

I already dove in and bought a black, hooded robe, so I’m kind of already neck deep.

If anyone wants to join, are dress code is white and silver. We meet every Friday under the 8th bathroom stall to the left in the dorm shared bathrooms. I’ve baked cookies and we’re getting pizza, but feel free to bring your own food!

Paradi. C. Benzene

I’ve finally woken up in the nurses office of Psychic High School Alpha. That is, the one I originally came from.

I spent what felt like months falling, falling, falling down into the infinite void below God’s stairs.

I think our conversation was cut short. God said someone else was coming up the stairs…but all the students from Alternate Psy High had already been…reused. I didn’t notice anyone ahead or behind of me. Who could it have been?? At this point I have more questions than answers.

When I fell back into my body, the other sentient parts of my brain immediately began talking all at once. Apologizing, yelling at me for leaving, asking where I’d been. Apparently they still haven’t got the hand of using a body yet…or lying. Luckily the nurse was understanding and actually set each one of my individual consciousnesses with a psychic therapist. On fridays we have group sessions.

I think this will be good for us. As much as I think of them all as “my” brain, they’ve all become their own individual people and I should accept that. Not only that, but I think I’m going to start using their astral projection to my advantage. After the Psy High Alternate incident, I think there’s more to the PHverse than we know about. I know there is.

Even though I have more questions than anything, I try not to think about them much. I have too much make-up work for that. However, I find it hard not to wonder what Qaaos is up to. I’m a weird way, I miss him. I’m seriously considering starting a Qaaos cult in honor of him and his great soup. Who knows, maybe we’ll meet again.

All in all, it’s good to be back home. Even though it feels like the end of my time in an era here, I can’t help but think it’s a new beginning, too.

Thank you.

Paradi. C. Benzene.

“U HAV DONE WELL, MORTAL SOUL

HUH? WAT DO U MEAN?

AH. U HAV QUESTIONS

FOR UR SCHOOL ASSIGNMENT. YES.

I SEE.

MANY PEOPLE HAVE QUESTIONS, MORTAL SOUL

BUT NOT MANY HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY SUCH AS THIS

WE HAV TIME.

SOME.

THE SCHOOL?

HM…

ENERGY CAN NOT B CREATED OR DESTROYED, HOWEVER, THE UNIVERSE CONTINUES TO EXPANDS. IT ELONGATES, DEMANDING MORE WOLRDS. U KNOW THEM WELL. U HAVE SEEN MANY. MANY R LIKE YOURS. ALLOWED TO LIVE. HOWEVER, LIKE IN ALL THINGS, THERE R SACRIFICES. THE PEOPLE OF THIS UNIVERSE KNEW IT WELL. AS I CONSUME THEM, THEIR ENERGY ENTERS BACK INTO THE UNIVERSE. INTO A NEW WORLD. IT IS RECYCLED, AS YOU HAV BEEN. AS U WILL B.

….? OH, YES. U HAV BEEN EATEN BY ME MANY TIMES. U ALL HAV. IT IS SIMPLY NOT UR TURN. U DO NOT REMEMBER. SOME DO. IT IS A GIFT AND A CURSE. BUT ONCE IT IS UR TURN AGAIN, U WILL REMEMBER. U WILL KNO THINGS U COULD NEVER KNO NOW. U WILL KNO WAT TO DO. U ALL WILL. AH. HERE COME THE LAST MEALS NOW. MOVE OUT OF THE WAY. I WILL EAT THEM QUICKLY.

…PLEASE STOP SCREAMING. I KNO I LOOK STRANGE WHEN I EAT, BUT HONESTLY.

HAV U GATHERED URSELF? GOOD. NOW, WHERE WAS I…? OH, YES, THE WORLD. NOW TO AWNSER UR NEXT QUESTION…

THE MEANING OF LIFE IS MORE COMPLICATED. IT CAN MOST EASILY B DESCRIBED AS FOURTY TWO. TO EXPLAIN: IT IS DIFFERENT FOR EVERYONE DEPENDING WHERE U R IN THE CYCLE. FOR U, IT IS TO PROVIDE JOY FOR THE OVERSEERS. ALLOW ME TO SPEAK TO THEM.

U, NO, NOT U MORTAL SOUL, U, OVERSEER. YES, I AM TALKING TO U. TO OVERSEER. TO MOVER OF SOULS. THE CREATOR. THE ARTIST. THE WRITER. THERE R MANY NAMES FOR U, OVERSEER. U ARE NEAR THE TOP OF THE CYCLE ALREADY. THESE SOULS I HAV EATEN, THEY WILL COME TO U. THEY WILL BE IDEAS. THOUGHTS. INSPIRATION. USE THEM WELL. RECYCLE THEM BACK INTO THE UNIVERSE FOR ME, FOR ONCE U WERE THE ONE BEING RECYCLED. TREAT THEM WELL, LIKE THE MORAL SOUL BEFORE ME.

THERE IS MORE THAN U KNOW. THE SCHOOL IS WHERE OUR REALITIES COME CLOSEST. THEY CAN ALMOST TOUCH. U, THEM, ME, AND ALL THE OTHERS.

CONTINUE TO TREAT IT WELL UNTIL IT COMES BACK TO ME, BECAUSE AS I LUV U, IT DESERVED TO B LUVED. IT IS U JUST AS U R ME. WE R ALL FROM THE SAME BURST OF STAR. I COULDF FLOAT INTO UR BODY LIKE A BODY UR OWN SIZE, LIKE ME INTO U OR U INTO ME.

AS U LIFT INTO THE REALM OF THE KNOWING, REMEMBER THIS.

NOW, THERE IS TIME FOR A LAST QUESTION, MORAL SOUL. THERE R OTHERS COMING FOR MY COUNCIL.

QAAOS? WELL…U WILL SEE ABOUT HIM. DO NOT COMPLAIN. I HAVE SPOKEN.

GOODBYE NOW, MORTAL SOUL. I HAV A FEELING U WILL STUMBLE UPON ONE OF MY WORLDS AGAIN.

…

THERE R OTHERS COMING UP THE STAIRS.*”





*Also translated from hideous, soul-wrenching screech language

After a series of diagnostic tests, we were sent to a waiting room.

"What about our old bodies? @old noah new samuel asks. "Can you put us back in them?"

"Sorry hon. Doesn't work that way," said the lady at the desk.

We waiting in the room for what felt like an eternity. There were magazines but languages we couldn't read. There was a wall-mounted TV that only played cooking shows and we couldn't change the channel. The chairs were too uncomfortable to sleep in.

"Mr. Sterne will see you now," the lady told us, and a door buzzed open.

"It's dark, but don't worry. He likes it that way. Just keep shuffling down the corridor and you'll know when you get there."

The door buzzed shut behind us.

And then the giant floating head of Mr. Sterne appeared. He didn't look at all like we pictured. He was a giant, bulbous, bumpy head covered with long stringy hair that hung like jungle vines. Big oozy googly eyes and a giant drooly spikey mouth. And horns and pointy ears.

And when we spoke he filled the room with the most hideous, soul-wrenching screech of noise we'd ever heard, and it drove us to our knees.

WUT? U WERE EXPECTING SOMEONE TALLER?*





*translated from hideous, soul-wrenching screech language

God is actually a pretty cool guy once you get past his looks.

Think of a giant, floating, lumpy shaped head covered in thin, stringy fur. Huge, round eyes that never move or blink, bloodshot and pupils blown. A wide open mouth that takes up the rest of the head the eyes don’t occupy. A few, straggly sharp teeth. A blood red tongue. On either side of the head are the ears of a squirrel, above them protrude giant goats horns that wrap around in a circle, penetrating into the flesh right above the eye. That’s God, and God is HUGE.

I can only describe God’s voice as a sort of maniacal giggle, fused bloodily with the squeaks of a squirrel. Take that voice and multiply it by a thousand speakers, and you can almost start to imagine what God sounded like.

Once the timer count down to zero, God appeared. No fanfare. No excitement. One moment there was black, the next there was God.

We talked for a while. I’m not going to waste battery life imbedding quotes. Nobody better be grading this.

“ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ ᓭℸ ̣

"Do you have an appointment?" asked the woman at the desk.

She was definitely representing as a woman. A middle aged woman in comfortable office clothes, pearls, big glasses and big hair.

"Uh, no," I answered. "But Mr. Sterne said we had a special waiver? Like, a hall pass? And whenever we needed to use it -- only in emergencies of course -- then we could come up and see him. 'Anytime,' he said. So here we are! Tell him it's Olivia."

The woman at the desk didn't even look at me.

"Then the hall pass will do." She put out her hand.

"Well, it WAS an emergency, so we had to leave in a hurry and I didn't have it on me so we had to just go. Come. Here. To see him. I'm sure that if you let him know it's Olivia from the kids he visited at Alt-Psy High that he'll want to know. We share a special connection."

There was no such connection. Somebody saw what they thought was the back of his head walk into the principal's office once, and so we all had this story that it was the famous and likely mythical Mr. Sterne you read about in the archives. But here it turns out there was something to it.

"You have admitted of your own volition and free will that you were roaming the access corridors without a hall pass. I'm sorry sweetie but we're gonna have to put you through processing."

She hit a button on her keyboard and started talking into her headset.

"Yeah Ricky? I've got a group of seven juveniles that just came through the Sector B Subcluster with no papers. Gonna need your help."

"Roger that" said the tiny voice coming out of her earphones.

Meeting God is a pretty intimidating concept.

As I walked away from Qaaos, I found myself missing the comfort his little smithy provided. There were more figures in the holes in the walls, but none of them spoke like he did. Just snowy, robe covered creatures of all shapes, sizes, and seemingly professions watching wordlessly.

Halls. Caverns. Corridors. Stairs. Stairs. Stairs.


I can’t describe to you how many stairs I’ve stepped up. All I know is stairs.


Until I reached the platform.


It’s completely black, except the large, red, holographic impact font in front of me.







GOD IS COMING
2:59

2:58

2:57


.


.


.



Paradi. C. Benzene.

Nothing but stairs. 

“Hope you like stairs,” said @Jonononathan Riggs. He was a pretty scrawny kid back at school, but the middle aged millionaire body he was in was in good shape. 

So we kept going up. Nobody knew exactly how to get to Mr. Sterne’s office. School lore just always called it “upstairs.” And being stuck in the access shafts between realities, it began to make a certain sense. 

“Maybe we could... take a… short break,” said @old noah new samuel. He was in the oldest body of us all, and the relentless stair climbing was taking its toll. He panted on the landing. 

“When we pause on a landing too long,” said @Field Marshal Olivia, “is when the other paths open up. Like that!”

Now there were two staircases going up, and two going down. 

“We’re best off if we can keep a steady pace,” Olivia continued. “But really it’s all about intention.”

“Theese one. Theese is the way to Mr. Sterne,” @Sabrina Duncan said. 

“Okay people — you heard the man” said Olivia. “But that Russian accent is totally fake. How did you even convince anybody back on the front, Sabrina-Alexy?”

I didn’t realize so much mold had grown in and over my mouth, until I had to actually use it.

I followed the small group of students, shuffling down the hall. I tried to get their attention, desperately I tried, but it was as if I wasn’t there at all. Blank eyed and emotionless, they tread onwards even now as I write this. I have never seen them falter, much less stop. Even when a rat scuttled in the way. The poor thing didn’t start a chance, now crushed under the shoe of a student.

I followed them down the corridors for…time. It could have been days or weeks, or just hours. It could have been a few seconds for all I know. At this point, my mind does more than wander. I’m practically in wonderland most the time. Nothing exists outside the infested hallways. Time and space might as well be as real as the Easter bunny, or the queen of England.

I only snapped out of it when I realized I could hear something I couldn’t before. Only out of my right ear, though. My left one has grown over with the mold at this point. For every step I took, I could hear a fain echoing sound. Step. Step. Step.

I looked down and I was stepping on a fine, black tile.

There are more students up ahead, their clothes in stark, white contrast to the black world around me. We are walking through a long, tall hallway. The walls on either side are looming. Seeing the ceiling is impossible. Within the walls, every hundred feet or so, are alcoves within them. They are all the same shape and size, almost like a large, fat teardrop.

The only thing that makes them different are the people- the things inside. I’m laying in one now. Qaaos said I need the rest. He’s right.

Qaaos in one of the things that live in the alcove. He is taller than be, though not much. He takes the appearance of a fat man under a long white cloak, but there is no body under the cloak. Only shade. He glitters like freshly fallen snow with every movement, the light from the fire bouncing off him in fine particles.

In front of me is an anvil and a fire. A cauldron with water, and a small bench of tools like I’ve never seen before. Qaaos says he is a smith.

He scraped off some of the mold growing on my body as I slept. When I woke up he answered many questions in a strange voice I can only describe as an otherworldly Santa Claus.

He was able to cut most the mold from around my lips, and he tore it from my throat. He cleaned some from my ear and nostrils, though much of it stays on my face.

I’d ask where we were- where I was, and he’d say: “You are not where you are, aren’t you?? You are here, and you’re not. You feel your feet in The Hall To God, but not your feet. Yours.”

Very helpful.

“Is this Psy High??” “This?? No. That?? Yes. You are, you aren’t. It was, not it’s was not.”

“Where am I??” “The Hall To God.”

“Where are they going??” The ghostly students continue to walk by. “They had their duty, and they knew it. You know it, but you don’t know. One day you’ll know it. Soon you’ll know you know. They’re going to God.”

“They’re dead??!” “Dead??! Dead. No. Never dead. Are you dead?? Never. Just as your body rests while you are here, they are there as their bodies go To God. Just as yours had and will and will always and will never.”

“Where do I go, then??” “Talk to God. Talk to God.”

As annoying as his answers were, I forgot all my peeves when he places a large bowl of soup in my lap.

I don’t know what kind, and I don’t care. I. Was. Hungry.

When I finish this, I’ll say goodbye to Qaaos. I’ll follow the rest of the students, and I guess I’ll meet God.

If I ever get back home, I think I’ll start a cult or something dedicated to Qaaos. If you get past his bad advice, he’s a pretty good guy.

I owe him one for the soup.

Until then, I guess I’ll go meet God.

Paradi. C. Benzene.