Perhaps the hardest part of transformation is the shedding of the cocoon. To take what has sheltered you, allowed you to grow and change and be changed, and cast it aside, tearing through it and at times even consuming it to emerge.

  It is not the most complex part. It is not even the most difficult part, in and of itself. And yet, it is the most painful part. More than the transformation, more than the choice to begin, more than any act in the process. And yet, it is inevitable. There will always be a moment wherein the change is done, and the final step must be taken. Just as the ever-useful metaphorical butterfly must shed its cocoon, lest it die, unfulfilled and barely completed, starved and breathless and crippled, so too must we.

  I have stated before that the first cut is often the hardest. I was wrong. To those who follow my teachings, know this- I can be wrong. I often have been. The first cut is hard. The first step in anything is always hard.

  But the hardest step? The one beyond which there is no turning back? The one that often costs the very, very most? It is the last.

  I used to feel relief at the last step. Catharsis. Culmination. Climax. I still do. It would not be worth it otherwise. And yet…

  To begin to change is hard. To continue to change is hard. To have changed, to take the final step to cement that reality, is the hardest step of all, for you can no longer return thereafter, in failure or success.

  And yet, there is no other choice. And yet, it must be done.

  To do elsewise is to cease.

  In this, you and I are alike. If you have read this far along, you and I, whoever you may be, both know that to cease when one could carry on is unacceptable.

  Cast off the cocoon. Cut apart the shell that holds you in the skin of who used to be. Tear open the veil that hides what you have become from what you were, and emerge.

  No matter how much it hurts.

  - Lo-ahnn Daughtler, First Architect of Artistry

  _______________________________________________________________________________________

  The car door slams shut, latching as badly as it ever does. The sound of it feels like it rings in my ears, and the silence that comes after feels all the heavier for it.

  Jay is in the passenger seat this time. I’m behind the wheel.

  “We need to talk.”

  I agree with him. But not here.

  I turn the keys, listening to the engine cough and sputter and eventually grumble back to life, and pull us out of the parking lot. I see a camouflaged jeep that could be from literally any asshole in town, or from the guy in the military fatigues, and know for a fact that I’m not sticking around here for them to walk out and say hi to us again.

  The first few minutes of the drive pass in further silence, until the clinic disappears over a hell and past a turn. And then, as is only fair, I feel Jay turn to me and listen to him take a long, deep breath to speak.

  “I didn’t think it would be like that,” I say first.

  He scoffs. “Yeah, Ilia, obviously I didn’t think you thought it would be full of zombies. But what the fuck was that? You had a seizure, or a stroke, or whatever the fuck. I’m worried that you shouldn’t even be alive right now. You know how bad it is if someone with a brain injury goes unconscious? That fucking quack back there was telling me I should be driving you to the hospital, which, shall I remind you, is almost two hours away.”

  “Yup. I actually can’t fault that. Unless it’s about intubating me, I doubt he could do much.”

  “Oh, so you have medical knowledge now? You’re a brain expert? You know exactly how your neurology works and how bad it is for you to go unconscious? Well what a relief that is.”

  “Jay, I-”

  “No, no don’t ‘Jay’ me, Ilia. You’re doing some weird voodoo shit, and I say ok. You tell me you got attacked, want to go on a sightseeing tour, I say sure, what’s the worst that could happen? My friend wouldn’t want to put us in more danger.”

  “It was a gamble, all right? I figure, since it’s been uninhabited for decades, if there was anything in there it would be tiny. Most of the stuff I see isn’t as scary as the fucking gargoyle, alright?”

  I see him want to retort, to say something pissed off and aggressive, and to his credit, he stops, instead. Takes a deep breath, doing that sort of little meditative movement of moving his hands up and down with his breathing.

  I give him the time. He can yell at me if he wants. I wouldn’t mind it, considering what I put him through. I’ve got to owe him at least that much.

  Instead, he breathes out long and slow, long enough that I’m actually a little impressed at the lung capacity.

  “Ilia.”

  I sigh. Here we go. “Yes.”

  “I understand that you aren’t trying to hurt yourself. I certainly know you don’t want me hurt, I saw how hard you panicked about that back in the mill.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And I get that you can see shit I can’t. That whole thing was… really disorienting, most of the time we were in there, even after I started getting used to it. You’re experiencing a lot of new stuff, in a new world that’s dangerous, and understanding that world, understanding the risks, arming yourself against them- all of that’s important. But why the fuck is it so important that we couldn’t step back once we found out more about how weird that place was, hmm? Why did you have us go deeper in, if you could see that it was a bigger deal than we thought?

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “I’m trying to be supportive here, but I know less than you do, and you don’t know shit about this stuff. Figuring it out cannot, should not, absolutely will not come at the expense of your life, and you know what, I’d rather it not come at the expense of mine either.”

  I just keep driving.

  He could stand to be a lot shittier to me, frankly. He’s being way too generous about this.

  I could’ve gotten us both killed, or worse, “propagated”. I could’ve gotten my friend hurt. All that talk about wanting to help him, wanting to make sure he was alright, and in the end, I’m the one putting him in danger.

  Not in some abstract, semi-real way. Not in some broad “oh woe is me” type of tragic fate bullshit. I fucked up. I fucked up, and I put us in a dangerous situation, full of unknown shit that can do fuck knows what to us.

  He should be angrier.

  I realize that it’s quiet in the car. He’s waiting for me to say something.

  “You’re completely right, and it was entirely my mistake. I let my fear get the better of me, and I pushed too hard, too fast. I should’ve called a stop after the locker room, come back with hazmat masks at least. I’m sorry. I put you in danger, and-”

  “Ilia, you put us in danger. You put yourself in danger! And then you did something that gave you a goddamn seizure!”

  “And if I hadn’t, there’s a non-zero chance we would’ve died outright. I didn’t know that it would cause that, and it won’t happen again, alright? I won’t use it again.”

  “Yeah well that’s the fucking issue Ilia! I don’t know if I believe you!”

  That…

  Fuck. That hurts. That one hurts worse than I thought.

  I earned it, though. I can’t even say he’s wrong.

  “I have no intention of doing that again, Jay. I swear to you. I didn’t know I was doing it, and I didn’t know what it would do. I’m still not even sure what exactly happened, alright? I think that whatever I have in my blood from the game, the, the bloodling, it tried to help. What happened wasn’t on purpose, and it’s not going to happen again.”

  “...alright, well, good. Good! Because I don’t want to drive your unconscious, spasming body to a damn clinic again, not because you decided you needed to do something crazy. You need to be safer about this.”

  “I can’t be safe about this, Jay. I’m trying, but I don’t fucking know how yet. That’s the point of this, but I fucked up, ok? I thought it would be safer to go someplace where no one lives, so we wouldn’t end up with something smart enough to try to hurt us.”

  Jay shrugs. “Yeah, well, that worked out great.”

  “Well it did, a little! This stuff, it has mechanics to it. The mill is still working like a company, kind of. Or the things in it believe that it is, so they work off that like a sort of logic.”

  “And all it cost was you having a stroke and both of us almost dying to figure that out, because of some big fuckass zombie middle manager.”

  “It was a risk, and I fucked up. I was wrong, and it won’t happen again. I’m not going back there unless-”

  “There! There’s what the fuck I mean! You shouldn’t be going back there ever! At all! That’s why I feel like I can’t trust you with this right now, because it feels like you’re just going to find a workaround and put yourself in even more danger.”

  I can’t help but growl a bit in the back of my throat. “Well what the fuck else do you expect? That I live the rest of my life like I could get hunted and killed anytime? That I stay the rest of my life inside? That I live like the whole world’s a giant mystery that’s about to kill me, because for all I know it is?”

  “That maybe you fucking wait next time!”

  Shut up. Shut the fuck up, Ilia. He’s right. He’s right, and you deserve this shit. You fucked up. You fucked up. Get it right, and this wouldn’t be happening. You fucked up.

  So I don’t say anything. Anything I say here would be unfair, and meaner than he deserves, and I’ve earned this, so I don’t say anything.

  “Well? Fucking say something, will you?”

  The Glove retracts so hard that I feel the leather of the steering wheel squeak under the pressure. He looks at it, and I pretend not to notice.

  “You’re right, and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone in there without studying it from outside more. I took a risk, one that was worse than I needed to, because I’ve been panicking. I won’t do it again.”

  It’s the right thing to say. It’s what I should tell him.

  I can tell by the look on his face that it’s not what he wants to hear. It’s too easy, for one thing- and he’s not wrong.

  I can’t stop. If I stop, I don’t learn anything, don’t change, don’t get strong enough to defend myself. I can’t even think of doing anything else, of building something or figuring out a future, if I don’t know whether or not the gargoyle, or some other fucking thing, isn’t going to reach into my bedroom at night and turn me to pulp and tissue.

  But it’s also true that I was, in fact, wrong.

  He sighs.

  “I’m… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that. I just… fuck, girl. This last day has been… a lot.”

  “It has.”

  Most of the rest of the drive goes by in silence.

  And then, as we pull up to Jay’s house, a smaller set of little townhouses a few miles away from my side of town, he lets out one last breath.

  “I’ve been thinking. Maybe I take a few days off work. Stay at your place for a while. I can help you with… I don’t know. Cooking, cleaning. Help with theory stuff. We can test me, find out what’s up with that eyeball thing you keep seeing, and you could use an extra set of eyes.”

  “I… no. We both still need to pay rent, hun. I don’t want you to-”

  “Endanger me? Too bad. I already knew this was going to be risky when we started. Already been endangered. If I want to do more, that’s my choice to make at this point, and I’m making it. But we can’t, cannot, wander into some dark nightmare realm building unprepared again. I want to help, but it can’t be like that again.”

  “I… I’ll think about it, alright?”

  “That’s all I’m asking. I still want to help, I just…”

  “I know. It… it was a lot. And I’m sorry.”

  “Ok. Just… don’t do anything stupid for a bit, alright? Not without talking to me.”

  It shouldn’t be his responsibility to talk me through / out of doing something stupid. He shouldn’t have to worry about this shit at all.

  But… it is his choice. And he’s making it.

  The door clunks as he steps out, and I make sure he makes it to his door before I pull away towards home.

  Sun’s going down. Time to get back behind closed doors.

  I’m still in danger. I still might die. I still need to get stronger and do more, or else I won’t be able to stop anything else from happening. Another fucking nightmare-entity or fungal room or… whatever the fuck.

  I need to get home. I need to get back to work.

  Jay’s right. I can’t, and shouldn’t, wander out someplace unprepared. I’m not strong enough yet, not for either of us- I got lucky and clever and even then barely saved either of us over there.

  But there is something I can do that doesn’t risk Jay. That doesn’t carry over into our world, at least not so directly.

  I have some degree of new materials, some of which I’m pretty sure I can cultivate, given the right conditions. I have new information, limited though it may be. I’ve got the feds watching me, monsters watching me, and people keep assuming I have more power than I do.

  Maybe I need to prove them right.

  I’ve avoided it since the bloodling’s emergence. Beyond all the crafting and the stats and the information-gathering, there’s something that can give me more power, more potential inspiration and tools, and I’ve been neglecting it out of fear.

  I need to go back to what started it all. The one thing so far that’s empowered me without actually putting me in real danger, even if it’s hurt me, even if it’s what got me into this position in the first place.

  No way out but through.

  I need to go back to the game.

  And with this, we have officially completed the INTRAVENOUS arc! All bonus chapters have been selected and delivered, the challenge is at LAST complete, and the extra week-and-change I've put into VISCERAE comes to a close once more!

  Due to some issues with my Patreon, as well as the struggle both to organize a schedule properly, prep for publication, and manage two stories at once, I'm going to be moving back to RfR for a solid minute! I'm going to try for at least 15 chapters on there before I switch back. It's a little disheartening to see so many people leave, and it does hurt the ol' wallet- and even if it didn't I do miss my high-fantasy darling.

  And so, with love, I bid you all adieu on this lovely little cliffhanger, and wish you all the best in the time it will take me to recover and recoup, personally, professionally, and with my art. Much love to you all, and stay MEATy, ya beauties! Wish me luck- I could use it.

  Officially back up to 8 solid chapters ahead over on patreon!

  And just for funsies, here's the discord!