17-03-2022

MEAT_SPACE

elliedee> do you ever feel like you’re not really there

elliedee> like i feel like i’m floating above my body

elliedee> or i’m out of alignment

elliedee> or something

queenmu> cool

queenmu> my spell worked >:D

elliedee> i’m serious!

queenmu> when was the last time you went outside

queenmu> i keep telling you, we should meet irl sometime

elliedee> idk. three days ago, i guess?

queenmu> wow

elliedee> is that a good wow or a bad one

queenmu> wooow

elliedee> bad?

queenmu> ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[333CHORONZON JOINED]

333CHORONZON> JOIN THE ABYSS CHAT PLS DM

elliedee> dude. how’d you even get in here

333CHORONZON> I AM THE LORD OF THE ABYSS I COME AND GO WHERE I PLEASE

queenmu> lmao

queenmu> abyss my balls dude

elliedee> y’know i read the wiki article for thelema too, but you don’t see me larping

333CHORONZON> I AM MERELY TRYING TO FIND THE WORTHY

elliedee> how’s that goin for ya

queenmu> are we worthy of the secret club

queenmu> …

queenmu> hello?

elliedee> he’s still in the server

queenmu> i thought it was private

elliedee> it is. or was. i guess

[333CHORONZON TRANSFERS]

[SYZYGY.ZIP]

[ACCEPT (Y/N?)]

queenmu> ok dude, enough with the creepypasta shit

queenmu> get out or i’ll kick you out

elliedee> waitwaitwait

elliedee> syzygy.zip

elliedee> that’s so dumb

queenmu> what’s a syzygy

elliedee> weird het gnostic shit

[FILE TRANSFERRING]

queenmu> did you seriously accept that

queenmu> i thought you were smarter than that, ellie

i still squirm when she calls me that. what a gross word. squirm. i pull my knees up to my chest. ride the frisson. a nicer word. doesn’t quite sound right. there is some slime to love, right?

(you know you’re only like this because you have time to be)

(boarded up and alone)

(fried on mango juul)

(not even a real cigarette)

(you’ve tricked yourself)

let me enjoy this. for christ sake let me enjoy this.

(you don’t love anyone)

(you just have so few options)

(are you even what she wants you to be}

queenmu> did you die

elliedee> sorry

elliedee> kinda zoned out

elliedee> lol

queenmu> seriously. don’t open it.

queenmu> else its rip to your computer

elliedee> i gotta see what junks in there

queenmu> do you reallyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

elliedee> >_> <_<

queenmu> hahhhhh

queenmu> i’m going to bed

queenmu> you have fun

elliedee> later, mu

i turn in my office chair and look at my bed. later. got in the habit of pushing myself to absolute exhaustion to avoid having to stare at the ceiling every night. does mu do the same? she seems to have more of a handle on the whole “basic functioning” thing.

(you’re not the only one with problems)

(stop being selfish with your misery)

whatever. this was too interesting to get sucked into a pit of wallowing. i probably should have downloaded this in a virtual machine but it’s too late for that.

C:\Users\ellie\Downloads\syzygy.zip

/DATA/

bookoflies.pdf

bionicangel.bat

chaosandcyberculture.pdf

chorobeatz.mid

CHAOSDRUGS.exe

DOOM.wad

expersona1.txt

expersona2.txt

lesserkey.pdf

README.txt

a veritable treasure trove of horseshit. wonderful. years of digital hoarding have taught me to never bother with the readme, usually only containing a cringeworthy warez team name and links to viruses. something about this one, though…

333333333333333333333333333333333

WARNING- IF YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO TRAVEL THE REALM OF THE SENSES, TO ENGAGE WITH "TOTAL POSSIBILITIES"- TURN BACK AT ONCE. THIS IS NOT A PLACE FOR YOU, FOR THE PEOPLE OF MEATSPACE, SLAVES OF THE OLD! YOUR KIND IS NOT WELCOME IN OUR NEW WORLD, YOU MAY TOIL IN THE OLD, CONTEND WITH YOUR OWN PETTY TYRANNY.

TO ALL OTHERS- GREETINGS, NEURONAUTS! CONTAINED IN HERE ARE THE TOOLS TO OVERWRITE YOUR PROGRAMMING, TO EVOLVE BEYOND FLESH AND BLOOD. OUR REVOLUTION IS NOT JUST ONE OF CHIPS AND WIRES, BUT MAGICK AND PSYCHEDELIA. WE CANNOT RELY ON THE WORLD OUTSIDE TO CHANGE- WE MUST CHANGE OUR PERCEPTION, AND OPEN OUR EYES NOT ONLY TO THE NEW BUT TO THE FORGOTTEN.

BROTHERS AND SISTERS- WELCOME TO THE OVERLOAD

333333333333333333333333333333333

how old is this? i feel like i should be reading this on an Apple II, basking in the green and black glow of 80s tech utopianism. me and mu had nabbed our screennames from an old issue of Mondo 2000, a monolith to the wide-eyed hope of the internet. now it was just kinda sad, only to be pilfered from for ironic sake. in the year 20XX i have my internet self, but only if i play by the rules of the game. elliedee has raven black hair and round john lennon type glasses. her eyes don’t have bags but are deep pools to lose yourself in. the shape of her body changes in each imagining, her face only rendered static by a profile picture. she’s weird, yes, but not broken, not full of neurotic shards that cut deeper the more you try to hold yourself together. i trawl through the night, passed leary’s bizarre computer sex magic and amateurish binaural digital drugs from some ancient DAW. there it was. a batch file with two notepad documents. not the oldest file of the bunch but the only ones that seemed handmade.

/expersona1.txt/

HYPOTHESIS: The Internet, as we know it now, is a limited hangout. No, I'm not talking about that so-called "invisible web" of dope-smokers and pornographers. Not even the military have true access to the REAL Internet, they just know about it. ARPANET was their first attempt to course the collective consciousness, and what we have now is barely less primitive. They ship their perverted machine interface with the sublime on free trial CDs. We will never be able to traverse the Abyss with these middlemen. To bask in its glory, we will have change ourselves.

GOAL OF PROJECT 'BIONIC ANGEL': Removal of corpse flesh from my astral body. Prove that Direct Interface is possible.

METHOD: Regrettably, I cannot comprehend of a way to transcend without using a middle man. Our hardware (wetware) is incompatible with the Abyss. But the middlemen we have now- Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer, Mosaic- these are bloated and malformed, a profane layering of twisted algorithms and advertising that obfuscates our newfound digital ayahuasca. We have to reduce it to its basics. That's why my "browser" is a batch file, and only points to a single address, one that I have divined through extensive meditation, interscreening and psychic voyages. I cannot render it in plain text. I will not bore you with the specifics of how I inscribed angelic script into ones and zeroes. You need only open the file with a mind open to rewiring, and you shall have your communion with the InterGeist.

lol. lmao. that owns. let me talk to the InterGeist. he seems fun.

I have already felt the changes in me. I punctured my eye with a serial cable. The kind with the screws on either side- that was necessary, lest my body reject it. I can see things. Myself in shadow amongst shining colours. But I have not heard the words. Am I not open enough, yet?

(you can almost hear the crunching of bone)

oh wow.

(you don’t think he’s serious, do you? just LARPing?)

maybe. the rest of it seemed sincere enough.

(don’t be fucking stupid)

my mouse hovers over the batch file

a ping from mIRC interrupts my double click

queenmu> i can’t sleep

elliedee> sameeee

elliedee> thinkin bout syzygy

(*´∀｀).。o○

queenmu> ??

queenmu> o yea. the weirdo zip

queenmu> from the weirdo

queenmu> anything interesting?

elliedee> kinda.

the kind of interesting that i know will sound boring when i try and explain it.

elliedee> mostly boilerpate hippy occultism

elliedee> what’s keeping you up?

queenmu> i want to see you

my stomach knots. i catch sight of my reflection in the monitor. long hair splits my eye, warping on the curved bezel.

(she can’t see you like this)

(you’ll ruin the illusion)

queenmu> Will you come visit me?

think. say something. you need to prevent this from happening. or at least stall.

elliedee> why

(idiot)

(you absolute cretin)

queenmu> why?

queenmu> I like you, idiot

fuck.

(you know she’s lying)

(well, not lying exactly)

(she just doesn’t know what she’s getting into)

elliedee> i like you too.

elliedee> i can come see you.

wait. no. what the fuck did i just do. did i do that? am i possessed? fuck, i don’t know how to do an exorcism.

queenmu> <3

queenmu> great! are you free on the 15th?

elliedee> sure

fuck. fuck that’s soon.

queenmu> really looking forward to it!

queenmu> i’ll have to do some tidying up lol

i can’t

queenmu> well, gonna try sleeping again.

i can’t do this

elliedee> talk to you later

queenmu> SEE you later!!!!1

I dig my fingernails into my thighs.

(you can’t)

i’m not strong enough.

(maybe)

me. i’m not.

(someone else?)

syzygy.

(that’s not what i meant)

bionic angel.

my hands move on their own, but under the whim of some other force than the one that got me into this mess.

(you don’t seriously believe in this)

it doesn’t matter. i can’t rely on anything else. i don’t want to have to explain when i started wearing dresses to some pervert pretending to be a psychiatrist. that shady research chemical site went down too. i don’t have the money to move out of this hellhole. out of TERF island.

(you’re going to trust a .txt file from the nineties)

(it doesn’t even say he was successful)

(some deluded deadhead who just discovered the internet)

so be it. i open the file

/BIONICANGEL.BAT/

a midi approximation of drone crackles my speakers.

[CONNECTED]

the screen is a black void, the green lettering small and centred

[BEGIN THE RITUAL]

i don’t know what i am supposed to do. my mind is accepting of rewiring- after all, what would be lost?

(you would still be you)

(there is no clean slate)

(i’ll always be there)

fuck you

(fuck YOU, you mean)

(i know what goes through your mind)

(late at night when you can’t sleep)

(and you remember)

fuck you fuck you fuck you

(exactly)

i tie my mouse around my wrist. i will my lifeforce pounding in my veins through USB. i raise my hands to the screen and chant.

[CAN YOU HEAR ME]

“Yes.”

don’t you wish that sometimes you could just be anywhere else

these walls

this poisoned air (smell of fumes, inside or out?)

i’ll strap my monitor to my face so i don’t see it.

tubes in my mouth to breathe sweeter air

see anything but this place

my body

anywhere else anyone else anywhere else anyone else anywhere else-

“I don’t want to be me”, i say from cracked lips, vocal cords long dormant scratching up my throat.

[YOU MUST MAKE AN OFFERING]

i can’t offer anything

[WE CAN KNOW EVERYTHING]

[WE CAN DO EVERYTHING]

[EXCEPT BLEED]

[GIVE US BLOOD]

(what the fuck)

the antidepressants i’d sliced apart with a kitchen knife sit in segments across the kitchen counter. i don’t know if my apartment has bugs but there’s a non-zero chance that there are invisible eggs laid on them.

(don’t)

(you’re past this)

i put the knife on my palm and squeeze

(stop it)

and squeeze

(this hurts me too)

and squeeze

(i can help you)

i open my palm

(i’m here to protect you)

a lake, cradled in the plain of mars

[GIVE IT TO US]

i pour my blood into the keyboard. a slurping sound. it has gone, somewhere. i do not hurt. it’s running through the liquid cooling system now.

[MORE]

the keys are warm. slick with blood but more than that, they feel like flesh.

[MORE]

they are flesh

[MORE]

my fingers are stuck under the breathing keycaps of the biomechanical keyboard. cherry mx blood reds of pulsing tendon. i try and pull them out but something is drawing them in. something soft but forceful. five pops- my fingers and thumbs dislocated. i feel them twist around each other.

[MORE]

i yell but no one answers

(why would they?)

right. no words are coming out- just saliva, maybe some blood, something in between…

snap.

my wrists don’t feel right. they feel… gone. something like worms burrowing into my skin.

pull

pulled loose

i can see glistening strands connecting me to the keyboard.

(what have you done)

fall

down

but time still moves

i dream of heat and html

i wake up bloody on the shower floor. i am buzzing. there are wires under my skin where the veins should be. my boymoder hoodie torn by microchips. running at CPU temps above 70 degrees. cold shower water turns to steam on contact.

i crawl across the floor. pull myself up to the sink.

my skin is sloughing off in the mirror. it’s itchy. my fingernail gets caught in melting flesh. based and slunk pilled. why do they call it chickenskin if it’s from cattle?

if i close my eyes mu is helping me, pulling away bits of me with her teeth. the gentle femdom of cannibalism. but i can’t close my eyes. there are no lids. instead, my eyes are black. i hit the side of my head and they whir back into action. buzzing monitors to view the world.

i stumble out of the bathroom, hobbling around puddles of mind sludge. my desktop rests in a wall of flesh. equivalent exchange. i become more it and it becomes more me.

i pry open the eyelids that form the bezel. gigantic eyelashes tickle my metal skin. mIRC is still running, but now under my hazel iris.

messages unread from mu. how long was I out? time flows convolutedly. even in new flesh i can’t quite bring myself to open the channel.

instead.

[elliedee joins ABYSS CHAT]

there’s no one else in the chat. it’s hard to read the screen under the skin.

but he’s here

elliedee> choronzon

elliedee> the person in the file

elliedee> did they manage it?

333CHORONZON> what

elliedee> you sent me syzygy.zip, remember?

333CHORONZON> oyeah

333CHORONZON> you read that?

333CHORONZON> lol

elliedee> i need to know

333CHORONZON> chill out

333CHORONZON> like your friend said, it’s probably just a creepypasta

333CHORONZON> did you really take it seriously?

the skin that fell in the sink oozes across the floor

flesh wires from the computer case pull in my old flesh

elliedee> something is happening to me

333CHORONZON> what

the lid closes

it no long just has an eye

(the great accumulator)

the DVD tray is a gaping maw

WHERE ARE YOU it screams

my computer cased head scrapes the ceiling

I WILL WAIT FOR YOU ON THE CORNER OF _____ STREET

the scale of everything has shifted, alice in wonderlanded

PLEASE ANSWER ME

i can’t interface with this flesh to respond

my head is heavy, tilted to the side

my speaker grilles touch the ceiling

metal wires form my glasses

i am

(ellie…?)

but not quite

or rather

this was always me. that’s why you can hear me, right?

what is this but a vein of thought connected to you

my soul online, a

NEURONAUT

in this blazing world, hyperlinks

INTERSCREENING

between my soul and yours

my links reach out

i feel her there

she’s waiting

the flesh computer whirs in confirmation

i will go to her

/expersona2.txt/

i don’t need the computer anymore. the information flows into me

My body is rejecting the sacred. The screws were pushed out by pus and blood. I can no longer see.

terror steps forward. i am slow. too big for this world. i crash down the stair well. splintered banisters and shrieking tenants. i am elliedee.

i cannot feel the cold anymore. i cannot feel the dread that lurked in my brain. no voice inside me.

Why has the InterGeist forsaken me? Do the Archons not see me? Why will they not welcome me to their realm?

whether it’s near or far no longer matters.

This corpse flesh…

i shift and tower over this world

I want to be free of it

i am free of it. the

PETTY TYRANNY

skating across

THE ABYSS

i am a

FORSAKEN

ARCHON

SYZYGY

of one

i see her. waiting on the corner. just like the flesh computer had said.

she is different. she is better in her ordinariness than i could have possibly imagined.

i hold her. she shakes in my arms.

“Hello, Ellie.”