Curtain Call

Hey, guys! I'm just letting you know I don't think I'll be needing to use this blog anymore. Everything is fine now, so I don't need you guy to support me. It's enough to just have the love and companionship of everyone here in the Church! But, before I go, here's a parting gift that I made for you all the other day.

Please share it with your friends! I want everyone to know how happy I am and how happy they can be! In a world like this, all we can do is spread our love, right? And I've found love here, guys, so I won't be needing yours anymore! So long!

Sing-Along

Apparently they enjoyed my musical stylings at the jam session because I've been reassigned. Instead of studying in the community college, I'm going to be a teacher's assistant at the playschool (kindergarten in Yankspeak), helping teach the kids through the medium of song. Naturally, I've been learning a lot of the songs that the Church like to sing, which has actually helped me solve the mystery of my whispering neighbours; they've been singing these songs late at night, which I find really odd. What's even weirder is that I never see them entering or leaving the apartments. Are they locked up in there for their own protection or something? I'm afraid to ask in case it's something I'm not supposed to be wondering about.

I'm still trying to figure out what they're doing. I still have to attend the daily theology classes but they haven't gotten anymore persuasive, just...I've grown indifferent to them, I guess? The ideas are interesting enough, but I'm not convinced by them. The implications are interesting to think about but I'm not going to turn into one of them just from thinking about their beliefs. I'm not thinking like them, as far as I know.

Anyway, things are slow here, so I don't really have much to say. I'm quite tired and it's getting close to the time when the whispering usually starts, so I think I'm gonna try and get to bed before that starts. Talk to you all later!

Neighbours

I think my neighbours in the complex must be crazy or something. They keep waking me up in the middle of the night with their incessant whispering. I dunno if they're talking to someone or to themselves or just muttering like crazy people or what but it's getting very irritating.

As much as I obviously dislike being kept prisoner in some cult's compound, I have to admit the classes are kind of interesting. I was always an okay cook but I'm learning some good stuff in the college here, though I keep having problems with carpentry because the designs they get me to carve into the furniture I make keep giving me headaches when I look at them. It's weird, because I obviously start the designs somewhere, but after a while, they don't seem to have a beginning or end. And the wood we use is kind of weird too.

But I digress. I let slip in class that I play music the other day and now I've been invited to come to a jam session. And attendance is mandatory. So I have to todder off. Sorry about the gaps between updates, it keeps slipping my mind. I'll try and update again soon.

Uncertainty

It's been almost two weeks and still it doesn't seem like they've been doing anything to brainwash me. I don't get it. I can't tell if they're just not doing a very good job or if they're doing such a good job that I haven't even been able to notice or if they're deliberately acting this way for some subtler purpose.

I don't want to get too paranoid about in case I'm playing into their hands, but I don't want to be too relaxed about it either, for the same reason. I'm half-expecting something underhanded, like drugs hidden somewhere, but I prepare my own food (thank you, cookery classes), take care of my own apartment, do my own laundry, etc.

They have to be trying something. But what?

New School

I've been out of the hospital for four days now. They've put me in an apartment of my own in a little communal housing area, one of many within the compound. Even though I'm on my own, I know I'm being watched. It didn't take long to find at least some of the cameras, if not all.

Because I was discharged in the middle of last week, they let me have a long weekend to settle in, but today I started my "re-education". I'm young enough that they've put me in what they call the day school, analogous to what Americans would call a community college, I guess. We're given a selection of subjects to pick from - I chose computer programming, carpentry and cookery. All the subjects are things which can be used to contribute to the Church in some way. I just picked what looked vaguely interesting.

In addition to these electives, we're given a daily class in the theology of the Church. This is the brainwashing class, obviously. I'm not going to pollute the Internet by spreading their filth but, after the first day, I can't see how they expect to successfully indoctrinate me. Either they're far more subtle than they seem at first, or my treatment is going to get progressively more severe.

Time will tell, I guess.

Still Alive 3: Still Alivin'

I'm apologising in advance for any spelling mistakes, I'm still having co-ordination problems since what Royal did to me.

Obviously, I'm alive. I think I've demonstrated that well enough. No need to dwell on that point any longer.

I'm in a hospital somewhere. It's a small, private one owned by these Church people. My arm picked up an infection in Royal's shack despite the antibiotics, so I've got tubes and shit running out of me, here, there and everywhere, fixing up the damage and whatnot.

They say I'll be ready to leave soon and then my education can begin. They're letting me post because they want you guys to see how happy I'll become once they've integrated me into their flock.

I'm scared.

The Servant's Tale, Part 4

The fellow from the Church came yesterday and took Sufjan away. Poor chap wasn't really in a position to resist, what with being drugged halfway to hell and only have one hand. I gave his collector enough antibiotics and painkillers to keep him going for a few weeks but if he doesn't renew the prescription, Sufjan's going to have a rough time of it.

I've burned down the little shack where Sufjan and I spent this last week and a bit. No evidence, no proof. Just ashes, as it should be. Everywhere I go, I intend on leaving ashes, where I've set hopes, dreams, minds and bodies on fire.

It's been a pleasure speaking to you all. I don't know if this blog is ever going to be updated again. I don't really care. If it is, I can assure you that the only person writing here will be the twisted, broken husk of what was once Sufjan McBride. If what I'm saying is getting you hot-headed, then good. That's exactly what I want. If it's not, that's fine too. It will give me the motivation I need to work harder.

So long, friends. I've got a world to burn.

The Servant's Tale, Part 3

Having had a few days to think about, I think I've arrived at a conclusion, as Gargoyle rightly guessed. It took some time to come around to a decision, but I believe I've found something as simple and elegant as it is poetic.

As its core, you might say that Sufjan's current predicament came about as a result of his simplistic worldview, the dogma in which he was raised. He used and abused his so-called beliefs to first make me a villain without consideration for the circumstances of my actions and then to justify his own attempt to off me as a divine duty handed on from high. Voice in a dream? Bullshit. He's been lying to you since he woke up in order to make himself look like a sympathetic victim.

More than anything, I think Sufjan's punishment should combine social recompense with rehabilitation. He needs to learn the error of his ways. He needs to be shown how dangerous the kind of blind moral system he adheres to really is.

Who here has heard of the Church of the Last? They're a rather interesting group, a religion worshipping an indifferent god, spreading the news of his existence by whatever means problem. Small town folk. They've had their hands in quite a few pies already, as I understand it. But they're always looking to expand and recruit and brainwash and torture, etc. etc. So, naturally, when I thought to make a lesson out of the perils of blind faith, they sprang to mind. A few phonecalls later and I was informed that they would be delighted to take young McBride off my hands for reeducation and all those other creepy mind-controlling communist dictator buzz words. They shall be arriving tomorrow and then Sufjan will be their problem and I can continue with my work.

What do you think? A good one, right? All that was Sufjan McBride will be obliterated and replaced with another wolf-worshipping sheep. So, y'know, even if Sufjan doesn't learn the lesson I'm trying to teach him, he'll learn something from somebody. Grazing, probably. And it's all your fault, readers. You could have made a better suggestion. You could have swayed me. But only two of you even tried to sway me towards a less horrifying path.

Kudos. You managed to be even more heartless than me.

The Servant's Tale, Part 2

So now I find myself in this shack in the woods, alone with a man who tried to kill me because he spent most of the terribly small quantity of energy in his minuscule brain jumping to conclusions, leaving him with none to stop and question his intended course of action. The dilemma hereafter becomes; what to do with the little fucker? I mean, beyond amputating his hand, obviously, but that wasn't so much a punishment as something for him to remember his failures by. Like a post-it, though I hope my memento will stick a bit longer.

I mean, it has to be a symbolic punishment, obviously. A lobotomy seems obvious, given that this whole story was caused by his stupid brain, but that procedure might be a bit too difficult. Castration is generally a good one and seems quite straightforward, but I think a bit overused? Or maybe I should blind him. Y'know, a pun on his shortsightedness?

But, hey, I'm magnanimous enough. You all obviously care about Sufjan a lot more than I do (I mean, seriously, he got a whole two comments on his last post, even if none of them were actually expressing concern for his circumstances), so I'll take your suggestions. Do any of you have any ideas on a suitable punishment for young McBride?

The Servant's Tale, Part 1

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was a man named Sufjan McBride, who interfered with things he didn't understand and meddled in matters that were none of his concern. He saw a big, scary-looking creature and assumed that it, and everyone associated with it, must be evil. He didn't stop to think that sometimes innocent people need to die to serve a greater good. He just saw a regrettably necessary murder and, in his simple, selfish little mind, decided that it was an act of sin.

However, Sufjan wasn't just any kind of idiot. He was a special kind called a hypocrite. So he fell under the illusion that he had a divine mandate to murder the murderer who, we must remind ourselves, he assumed was evil just because he murdered someone, with no outside circumstances taken into account. Thus brings us to the point in the story when Sufjan pushed me off a balcony.

Unwilling to accept the consequences of his actions, Sufjan fled to the great nowhere of America, where any smart man can disappear quickly, which, of course, raises the question of how a moron like Sufjan thought he could get away with it. The answer being, of course, that he is a moron. Little did Sufjan know that way back in Ireland, I had survived my fall, thanks to the intervention of the drug dealers he had prudently ran away from, though my indifference pain thanks to a brain injury I received when I was very young helped by allowing me to remain lucid and guide my rescuers in their aid.

After spending a couple of weeks recovering, it didn't take me long to find this blog and start keeping track of what Sufjan was up to. I figured out his location with the same method that Caden did; he left too many goddamn clues. Once again, the word "idiot" springs to mind. So, I decided that Sufjan needed to be taught a lesson. Mainly, that he is an idiot, that he is, more specifically, a weak idiot and, more specifically still, that he is a weak and pathetic idiot. So I showed him just how far he was from escaping what he did to me, how vulnerable he really was and then, when I felt the time was right, I got him. When Sufjan showed up at the Oriental Theatre, I simply crept up behind him, hit him over the head with a brick and dragged him to my rented car. Nothing overly dramatic, like he was expecting. Which was, naturally, exactly the point.

Sufjan woke some hours later, tied to a cross (there was one in the shack where I took him and it was an opportunity too hilarious to resist), with me sitting across from him in a chair. To make sure he was awake, I blew his left hand into kebab meat with his own pistol. After watching him squirm for a few seconds, I kindly shoved a syringe full of anaesthetic in his arm and amputated the offending limb. I told him how stupid he was as I worked to keep his mind off what I was doing. It was done in just a few minutes, with no pain whatsoever.

See? I'm not such a bad guy.

The Lamb Lies Down On Randolph Street

I'm in a Starbucks on Randolph Street, Chicago, getting ready to meet the man behind the messages. I'm not sure how I feel. Scared? Anxious? Relieved? Ending this seems like a promising conclusion, even if I'm not sure what "this" is...or who will be ending it.

I gave Peter and Natalie back their shotgun, it being somewhat difficult to conceal. The only weapon that I'm bringing with me to the theatre is my brain. Not sure if it will be sharp enough to best the blade that has been raised against me, but it's all I have. It's all I've ever had.

In case this goes badly for me, I want to thank everyone who's been supporting me through this. Especially Elaine, Caden and Gargoyle, but everyone else as well. It was a comfort to know you guys had my back. Thanks.

I guess I'm going now. Hopefully, I'll talk to you all later. So long for now.

Freedom, For Now

The second that Amy posted the solution to the last message, the box opened. Oh yeah, it turned out we were in a shipping crate in the docks of Chicago. Full of canisters of gas rigged to a timer. Apparently, whoever the mysterious messenger is, he has resources. And a flair for the dramatic. Somehow, I don't think I'm going to be surprised when I go to the theatre on Saturday.

For anyone for whom that is a shocking revelation, yes, I am actually slapping on a pair of testicles and going to confront this person. I'm also doing it alone. Peter and Natalie have been getting caught in my crossfire. They have places to do, people to be and all that jazz. I'm sending them on their way. I'm gonna scout out the place where I'm meeting the mystery man, rest up, get some food and then...deal with this. Whatever this is.

Thanks again to Amy for getting us out of that bind. I'll update again before I go to the theatre. Hopefully it won't be my last update.

The Last Puzzle

We're in a dark place. We're locked in the jeep, we can't open it, we can't start it, we can't see anything outside. The only light is coming from glowing letters spraypainted across the windshield.

"THERE IS A DIVINITY THAT SHAPES OUR ENDS, ROUGH-HEW THEM HOW WE WILL

(Your initial problem is solving this puzzle. Good luck with that.)

Uei Xelvnun Fnplptrz hnp Zvblnflp Moemevx

24 & 32 D Rmyhhspt Dxklef,

Nlbjasz,

Mesizzml

Hpdtp 14mo af 16:16"

I don't know how long we can last in here. We can't tell if there's air coming in from outside. We don't know anything.

Help us. Please.

Another Answer, Another Riddle

So Caden figured out that last riddle. The answer was the word "Empty". We also got a new message earlier today. Our stalker delivered it in a suitably dramatic fashion; he nailed it to one of our tires with a knife.

"WHAT SEEST THOU ELSE, LIAR, IN THE DARK BACKWARD AND ABYSM OF TIME?

Zlam abte hm ksull ziizov xhx shesm?"

He wasn't subtle about the codeword though; the word "Death" was carved into the blade of the knife, even someone as utterly oblivious as me could have figured that out. The decoded message was this riddle;

"What type of house weighs the least?"

Again, even a dumbass like me didn't have to think too hard for that one; a lighthouse. Is it just me or have the riddles gotten easier as time goes by? What's the deal with that?

Anyway, the tire situation has delayed us a couple of days, but we'll be back on the road soon. Peace.

Still Breathing

An anonymous commenter figured out the cipher of the other guy's post, but it's just another riddle. You can read the translation > here <, any suggested answers to the riddle are welcome.

We had to stop for a couple of days because Peter was having an adverse reaction to at least one of his many medications. Past experience says that, whoever this messenger guy is, he doesn't need us to slow down like that to find us but I'm guessing it didn't hurt. Anyway, Peter's recovered so we're going to keep moving. Natalie says this is the final leg of the journey. It's going to be taking us pretty far, so I'm hopeful it'll be enough to shake off our stalker (my stalker?) but I'm not holding my breath either.

We haven't seen the monster in a few days and he's probably not been around, otherwise Peter and Natalie would have noticed, what with the whole spontaneous headaches thing. I get worried when it's away for too long, which sounds strange. I guess I just like knowing where it is? I dunno.

Sufjan out.

The Prince

Hello there, readers. I'm afraid I couldn't think of a suitably dramatic way to send Sufjan this message, so I've decided to just hand it to you lot on his very own blog. Why, you ask?

Just to let him know that I can. So he's fully aware that I can reach out and snap his scrawny neck at any time and that the only reason he's not already in my grasp is because I like to toy with my quarry before I go in for the kill.

As that GaGa creature would say, here's your next puzzle, little monsters;

"THE PRINCE OF ETERNAL DARKNESS IS A GENTLEMAN

Nstag azfv n ohvu, rwiw eikfsek ms dk bnex, vvyciw mlv rwekm eep znkm flf W ne mlv eozw, mebq chl fc durqdx eep ggaep Z dszsbr. Ntog ohvu ma V?"

By the way, Sufjan, when you wake up, may I say; nice night terrors you've got there. Really top quality.

Riddles for a Fool

Okay, so I think, with the help of an anonymous tip, possibly from whoever's writing these messages, I've figured out the code being used in the messages. Uh, well, I actually think it's a cipher though I'm not sure on the difference.

It's called a Vigenère cipher. I don't know how it works and I'm not too concerned about learning, what's important is that each coded message needs a keyword to unlock. I've figured out the keywords for the four messages I've received so far and they all decode to make riddles;

Message 1 - Keyword: Sufjan

"What has existed for a million years but is never more than a month old?"

Message 2 - Keyword: Juliet

"What goes up but never comes down?"

Message 3 - Keyword: Life

"It cannot be seen, it weighs nothing, but when put into a barrel, it makes it lighter. What is it?"

Message 4 - Keyword: Flesh

"Until I am measured, I am not known, yet how you miss me when I've flown."

Okay, I figured out the code, can I get a hand with the riddles? I've never been very good at them.

Strange Noises

I was getting one of my rare chances to relax in the back of the jeep, so I put my iPod on shuffle and settled back for a snooze. Evidently, my music collection decided that it wasn't going to co-operate.

First, just as I was starting to drift off, this Daft Punk song came on. I had just gotten really comfortable and was finally on my way to sleep when suddenly, "I AM THE BRAINWASHAAAAAAA" started blaring out of my earphones. Sufficed to say, I went from a completely horizontal position to whacking my head of the ceiling of the jeep. Peter and Natalie barely stifled their amusement when I explained what happened. It was about the only time since I met them that I've seen them both smile within ten feet of each other.

Then, a while later, I was trying to get zen again, when this song by Gotye came on. Only there was a connection problem with my headphones, so I thought I was hearing that insidious whisper of "please...don't leave me out here on my own..." in my goddamn head and nearly had a freaking heart attack. Luckily, there was no jump scare for Peter and Natalie to make fun of me for, but it wasn't a very pleasant experience.

After that, I made a playlist using only pop albums, since I figured I would avoid all the weird shit and actually get to sleep. Alas, it was not to be. I was, once again, just on the cusp of relaxation when, I shit you not, I started hearing a little girl greeting me. She just kept saying "Hi" over and over again, and, at first, I thought I couldn't possibly be mishearing things, because it kept getting inflected differently. Nope, as it turns out, "Dirty Dancer" by Enrique Iglesias has some weird sound effect that sounds exactly like a little girl saying "Hi". Marvellous stuff.

So, I thought of the only other reliably relaxing thing in my iPod; looking at pictures. Thus it was that I stumbled across, wait for it, another goddamn message. It was hidden among the pictures of Shannon in one of my folders. I guess whoever left it was presuming I would go looking through my pictures eventually. The filename was "Flesh.jpeg" and it was, unpleasantly, a picture of some rotting human flesh with the following text superimposed over it;

"THOU SHALT HAVE JUSTICE, THESPIAN, MORE THAN THOU DESIREST

Zyxas N lq elfdyjli, T ee ute ofvby, cwa mza qvz xmkz rp azls T'zw mqzaf."

This is getting seriously irritating. Does anyone have any suggestions I can go on? Please? This could be really important, only I'm missing out on whatever it is because I'm not as smart as whoever is sending the messages expects me to be.

A Sign

Last night, we pulled into a little side road and slept in the jeep. We were all too exhausted to drive. Me especially, since even when I'm not driving, I have to stay up front and keep whoever is company. Peter and Natalie have barely spoken to each other since I met them and it makes me wonder what's going on between them. I'd assumed they were a couple but there's an obvious and uncomfortable distance between them, some unspoken argument that neither of them wants to happen but both of them know must.

I had difficulty getting to sleep but once I did, I had what I can only describe as a surreal dream. In my dream, I was looking at Shannon's grave and her body was sprawled out on top of it instead of buried. I tried to reach out to touch her face but something kept stopping me, like there was a limit to how close my arm could come to her corpse. Suddenly, I realised there was something fucked up and started looking around, trying to figure out what it was. Eventually, my sight ran the whole length of my body and I discovered that my feet were buried up to the ankle in the monster's body. It took a minute for it to hit, but then I realised it; I was the monster's arm. I looked up at its filmy face of autopsy flesh and I swear he smiled at me.

When we woke up, it was quite late in the morning and someone had come along with a giant sign and planted it right in front of the jeep without any of us noticing. It looked like it was painted over an old billboard for Life magazine. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was another note;

"A TALE TOLD BY A HYPOCRITE, FULL OF SOUND AND FURY, SIGNIFYING NOTHING

Tb heyvtx mm xipv, nx hmnksa ssepnrr, jzx hpjr acy mybt e miwvpt, nx xipid qy ptomxpz. Bllb nw tb?"

Someone help me out here. What the hell is with these messages?

Cold Iron

We pulled over on the edge of a forest yesterday. Natalie decided she was going to teach me the basic of how to use a gun properly. Again, I protested, but she said that as long as my inexperience and unwillingness is compromising the safety of her and Peter, I have an obligation to learn. I couldn't really argue with that, so I followed her to the treeline and accepted the shotgun for the second time. It felt wrong in my hands but it's been a long time since anything in my life felt right.

Natalie took a knife from the car and carved a bunch of circles into a few of the trees. I had to hit inside the circles, which, unsurprisingly, I didn't succeed in doing once for a good three hours. I was starting to feel hungry but Natalie said I wasn't allowed to eat until I'd shot at least three circles. Eventually, her advice seemed to pay off (or maybe I just got a lucky shot) and I managed to get one. I missed the next few and then got another, missed some more and then got my third.

Natalie didn't look happy but acquiesced to my request for food. I get the feeling she was hoping I'd pick it up faster than I did but she can hardly expect me to become a gunslinging badass in one day, can she? It'll probably be months before I'm even comfortable having a gun in my hand, let alone capable of using one.