Chương 121: Grand Guignol

The world just didn't feel right anymore. I knew there were things in this world that didn't exist in any way we knew about them before; there were people with grandparents who remembered the days before superheroes even existed. We as a people have not weaned off of that sense of "normal" despite being generations into it. Eighty years is too fast and too short to make people understand. We could barely digest the notion that a man can fly. There were still attempts to legislate the Hell out of it.

Magic was a whole separate scale of issues that defied what logic still had permission to exist in a world like this. And this, now, was something else. Nothing directly about it was out of the ordinary. Someone talking to us through a screen. Technology has made that possible for a good while now. It was the fact he saw us without a camera. Could hear us without a microphone. Told us things we've never told anyone. Things we've never been told ourselves. Like our worst fears, or that family members were sick.

The man who raised me in the foster home was developing Alzheimer's and forgot my name. I didn't know it, but this thing did. That kind of knowledge made me feel so much smaller than I ever did before. That the actual scale of the world around me was far greater than anything I could've ever imagined. But less like an open field, and more like a dark forest. One where we just made as much noise as possible, and something that thrived in the night made itself known by staring directly at us.

"How may I help you, daughter of man?" asked it. The thing. The one called Foras. Pretending to be a news anchor on a fake TV show, on a TV that shouldn't even have power. He asked this to Agent Lafeuillade, who treated the whole thing as a minor inconvenience. That shook me even further. The only thing preventing terror from striking me was the seething rage of Foras immediately trying to exploit my own fears and weaknesses. Trying to make me prey. Agent Lafeuillade spoke with flat cadence.

"We had correspondence over this a month ago. May Hart-""Lost her foot in a battle with a what-once-was-man by the title of Brother Gleditsia." So Gleditsia wasn't human? That made sense given what I'd seen of him after tearing bits and pieces off of him and punching holes through him, but getting that kind of confirmation here wasn't what I expected.

"Correct. So you've been observing."

"I do not observe, Morgan Lafeuillade. The role of 'Îyr was not and was never mine. You are aware of how knowledge propagates among us."

"Right. Then you understand what we need." Foras nodded.

"She seeks to recover what is lost. You know that is my specialty. But why me? Others have this specialty as well. Prince Vassago is of far more kind nature than I, and Naberius would see this as a lost honor to restore."

"You know exactly why, you bald dog," she started.

"You are a meager president. You are below me. You lack bargaining power and will thus obey my commands." The man shrugged. Maybe not man. Still just wasn't sure.

"This is true, but even with obedience, things do not come for free. I am also within my rights to observe and comment on what lost things are among the others, for a greater offer."

"We only need May's foot restored."

"Need. But not want. I am interested in 'want' as much as 'need.' If my aid is to be sought out, you must recognize my rights. The King's pact as enabled by your Lord's decree grants me this much, daughter of man." Lafeuillade procured her pipe from her suit jacket, and pressed her thumb against the end of it. Smoke began to pour out and she took a drag.

"Fine. Make it quick." Foras took his eyes off of her and looked more generally out, before settling his gaze on Jairo.

"You, Jairo Carter. You have lost much. You lost your connection with your father, you lost your chance at professional athleticism, and obviously you lost your humanity. I can restore all of those things. Every single one." Jairo just watched, body tensed like a compressed spring.

"Well? Do you not want your parents to be happily together? Do you not wish to have people announcing your name — your real name and not a title — as you raise your fist in the ring? Don't you want human skin and eyes?" Jairo finally spoke.

"I'm not talking to you." Silence sat in the air for a few seconds. Foras' gaze unblinking, face neutral. He then nodded.

"I see." His gaze then moved to Chris.

"And you, little lamb of the shepherd, you have great loss as well. Can you speak to me with deep honesty and say you do not wish to have your sister back? You could not tell me with an honest face that you don't pray to your Lord every day that you just want dear Lily to be back, no?" The air shifted, ever so slightly. Shivvy tensed up. I didn't even know he could tense up. Looking over at Chris, his body simply went slack, before he began to speak.

"Oh, Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name…" Lafeuillade spoke up.

"Christian. If you recite the Lord's Prayer, all you will do is anger him. Foras is not physically here and cannot engage in any influence on us without our consent. He is merely a voice on a screen at the moment. If he is angered, we may not be able to afford his prices for May's foot." Chris stopped, and Foras laughed.

"What a reparteeist. But to be clear, I do not have a voice here. The King's pact is transparent about my means of correspondence. I cannot speak to you nor can I let you see me. What you hear is the result of electrical signals producing sounds similar to my voice. What you see is the result of electrical signals stimulating liquid crystals to produce colors and shapes that match one appearance I like to use. I am still impressed you humans let these things into your home.

If only you saw what was on a circuit board." Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

"Enough, Foras. Are you done?" Lafeuillade asked.

"Not yet." He then pointed a thick finger towards me.

"You. You fascinate me. You radiate loss. Lost parents. Lost ambitions. Lost innocence. Lost memories. Though they're not as lost as you may think. I could not restore them no matter the bounty offered. As for your parents and innocence… you don't need them. That is difficult for me to admit to, but you are a far more interesting figure without them. As for your ambitions… they sit with your memories." Anger was suddenly quenched by confusion like glacial water in my veins.

I couldn't be mad because I was too busy being actually befuddled.

"What do you mean they're not lost?"

"You have been told that your power causes you to cede your memories. Burns them up. Scrubbed away a portion of your grey matter. That is not how memories work. Memories are recorded in the soul. The brain is simply the parser. I can locate them and see where they are, as you still infer your memories are 'lost.' They are untouchable for me, however. They are bound and wadded tight like an embalmed heart." I didn't need to ask why. I could tell why he was telling me this. To inflict despair on me.

To hurt and upset me. Further spite for us for whichever reasons may lie in an awful thing like this. But I still couldn't stop the compulsion.

"Why are you telling me this?" He laughed, each"Ha" erupting from somewhere deep within. Felt less like a human's laugh and more like if a bull could laugh.

"Why, it is quite simple. Because as a free sample to prove my power, I am restoring something lost in you. Hope. And I return to you your hope, by telling you that your memories will return. On the six thousandth, nine hundredth and fortieth day, you will die for approximately one one-hundredth of a second. Something that could be medically described as a split-second deadly stroke. You will then revive, and remember. Instantly. Everything lost. Everything about who and what you are."

I tried to swallow air that wasn't there. There are no words to describe the sensation of being told when you'll die. Even if it wouldn't be permanent or final, just the topic of impending death seems to suck all the water from your body and the air from your lungs. You suddenly recognize your mortality, and that the only difference between you and the pig in the slaughterhouse is which side of the fence you're on. I almost coughed out the next words.

"But why me? Why say it at all?" For someone who allegedly had hope restored in him, I couldn't feel it. Then again, I had no clue what the Hell hope even felt like normally as it was. Foras lowered his hand and sat upright.

"Ah, yes. Also the terms of the King's pact. Our sentences shorten by imbalance in favor of magnanimity. We do a bit more good than what we take, and it makes this deal take a bit less time. Of course, I hate humanity and the Lord's creation, so I limit the breadth of my gifts. Now, of course, the true subject of this meeting…" he trailed off, glancing towards May. She was curled up in visible fear. Eyes bulged out like a deer in headlights.

Foras had to look down towards her, which looked to me like an accurate dynamic at that moment. Just seeing her in that position caused the anger to build back up in me.

"May Hart. My, quite the losses in you. You're losing your father, you lost your brother, you lost normality just like the others. And you've lost a part of your body entirely. Not to the capacity of your companion Jairo," he noted with a chuckle,"but you are still disabled by it. Though, similar to Jairo, you've also managed this quite well. You've even defeated supervillains by yourself!" He pointed up to the corner of the screen, where footage from an impossible angle showed May fighting off two ADU members.

The ones she described who were shooting out vines and throwing bombs. The lights she was shooting out made her look more like a turret than a person.

"Which makes me wonder, have you really been seeking to regain your foot? Do you really want it back? You've adapted to it quite well, you know."

"I-" She started.

"You were going to say an excuse." He interrupted.

"May Hart, I know the direction of these things. I know what you say before you will say it. So quickly think over all the excuses in your head. Imagine them if it so pleases you. Get that over with first." She just stared at Foras, chest rising and falling, before nodding.

"I… I did it."

"Now answer me."

"I- I do want my foot back. I don't care that I'm adapting to it, I want my whole body. I want to have the potential I had and that I lost as a little girl. I'm so close to meeting it but I can't while I'm like this." He pointed to her, a wide grin crossing his face. He had too many teeth.

"Of course! That is what I wanted you to admit to. That you didn't just lose these physical things. You lost your potential. Your Lord's cruelest device against you: Potential. What could be. What could have been. I imagine all of you have had thoughts about that. It is what they call the 'human condition.'" He then clapped both hands together.

"Now. Originally I had planned on asking for no price. I know what shall happen to you all in the future. Being able to observe what will come would have been value enough in most cases. But I have decided, perhaps out of spite, or maybe entertainment, that I need a price. I cannot be too generous to uplifted mud and dirt, no matter how much I desire to be free of my bondage."

"You did not say you would change the terms," Agent Lafeuillade stated, taking a drag of her pipe.

"You do understand that will complicate any future deals I may make with you, or any associates of mine, yes?"

"Do you think that kind of threat bothers me? While you bear authority over me, you do not bear resources over me. I will be here after almost all of you die. By the time I pass, there will be only one left to close the door on the world and in that case I know my demise will be the product of no consequence of my own. You do not scare me more than entropy, daughter of man. Now may I state my terms, or shall this lowly President leave you to beg a Marquis or Prince for help instead? They will be far less generous."

The magical agent stared at him. My gaze followed hers. Didn't even need to see her eyes behind her sunglasses to know that we both could only project a desire to smear this thing against the concrete and be rid of him entirely. And I didn't need to see her eyes to recognize that we both knew that couldn't happen. Wouldn't happen. And how much it set a fire in us.

"Fine," she stated flatly.

"Continue."

"Good. Initially I was going to use my own resources, at cost. Instead, I will be using mine so that you can produce your own means to restore May Hart's body. I brought up potential for a reason. You are going to build up lost potential that will then be channeled into her."

"And how are you going to do that?"

"With this." Foras snapped his fingers. Everything went to black. I didn't know for how long. But when the black faded, we were elsewhere. No longer in the base. We were all standing, looking up at a building covered in rich and vibrant colors, with one clear label on it: T H E F O R A S F U N H O U S E