the Path

Navi here... hi.

So uh, apparently I've been called to answer what I was up to over the Halloween week or something? Or 'Hollow's Eve' as Captain Caps-Lock likes to call it.

So lets run through her questions really quick. 'Her'. Presumably a her. Moth likes to refer to it as a her... but Picasso is not a name for a 'her'. I keep picturing I've been traveling around with an old artist who doesn't know how fucking shapes work. Hack.

But lets get back to the questions, no need to dwell on the opinions that got me thrown out of art class.

"What happened girl? Where you at? You still here with me? Where you going? You alive?"

-Picasso in the last post, allegedly 

I have no idea what happened.
I'm here, in a hotel room.
I didn't pay for it, the door was unlocked, and no one has been complaining so I assume I'm still with you or I've actually broken into someones house.
I have no idea where I'm going. Presumably, I'm following you to meet up with the people who probably killed Moth.
I am totally alive. And if I'm not, this is a better hell than I could have ever asked for so yay me.

But to address the more general question of what I've been up to, I'm gonna be honest and say I'm not entirely sure...

I'm not sure about a lot of things anymore. All I know is the Path.

Ever since Master started chasing me, my bright colorful world turned black.
I was hopeful when I was cornered and begging for Master to end my suffering and ordered to 'kneel' by something that felt more like an overwhelming inescapable presence filling my mind and scrapping away at my thoughts than actual words... that the darkness might go away.

But it didn't. The world turned even blacker. Now the only light is the floor in front of me. The only color is what passes for emotions from a mute and a sociopath I can't even see. No offense guys. But you feel funny. Your colors are wrong.

All I've been doing since then is following the Path that lights up before me... killing or talking to people in the areas that light up around me. Desperately trying to figure out why the Path stopped there. Figuring out what I'm supposed to do there. And when its done, it gets dark again and I follow the new Path.

After I met Master and Moth again at the hotel, the Path changed. No longer was it a lit path guiding me around. It became an area around Master, calling me to his side... branching out only when I needed to take him somewhere.

And then when we left the hotel Moth dragged me into that... place. What he calls the Path. Apparently that's what all of his kind and their victims call the path. But its not. They're so wrong. That place was more like Master's Neverland. There were so many of them. They called for us. Screamed for us. G-Grabbed at us.

They wanted to play 'the tree game'. I just wanted to get away from them. I just wanted to escape them and their constant grabbing and whining. So many faces. So many colors... I practically threw myself out of the exit portal thing...

Master didn't follow us out... still in Neverland I guess. Still with 'them'. But the Path, the Path still lit up around Moth beckoning me to follow him. And I did.

Until operation 'Hollow Hunt'. Moth wrote my orders on a single sticky note. The note had an address, a date, and the key phrase 'Stake Out' written on it. Once he handed me the note, he walked off into the blackness. The Path no longer followed him. I turned around to find a new path opening up behind me. It led me to a car and kept me in the passenger seat until I needed to eat or sleep. In this way, it eventually led me to the place on the note and then to a place to stake out the address until Halloween night.

I have to assume this new path I've been following has been forming in Picasso's wake. That its leading me to travel with her since I was told I would be working with her for this but I can't be sure.

Before anyone asks, I have not tried to wonder away from this Path. It... wouldn't be safe.
I occasionally glance off into the darkness as I walk with what was, at one point, curiosity of what might lie in the dark mysterious abyss that surrounds me. I now know the answer to be all manner of horrible things.

Veins of lava, chasms, wide open toothy mouths,  saw blades, outstretched appendages, corpses, grinning children, and worst of all People.

I can see old loved ones and family members roaming around in the darkness. They're screaming, bleeding, battered, and covered in blood. Many of them call out my name begging to know 'Why? Why did you doom us? Why did you kill us?!'

I know from experience that trying to answer just brings louder angrier screaming... best not to bother.

Sometimes, out the corner of my eye, I can catch Master out there standing deep into the darkness and staring at me with that eyeless, featureless face. A stare so intense it often winds me, leaving me to choke on my own fucking breath. I don't know why he does it. I've been good. I've been so good. I never leave the Path. Never! Never ever, it's not Navi. Never Navi.

Please never Navi. Please...

....

Sorry. I just... don't understand what I'm doing wrong. So good. Good girl. Good girl. Just wish he would tell me what he wants... I wish he had a mouth.

Uhhhhhhhpppppppphhhhhhh.

Deep breaths. I'm fine. Everything's fine. Master loves me or I'd surely be dead... surely.

Uuuuuhhhhppppphhhhh.

And now they're screaming again. Just.... Just peachy.

Topic topic topic. Back to the topic.

Right. So I've just been following the Path. The lit up road ahead of me taking me everywhere I need to go, apparently, and blinding me to everything else whether I like it or not. And it let me to the address of Fracture's coffee shop where whoever the fuck that is has apparently tethered their loop (Because supposedly that string of completely disassociated words is supposed to mean something.).

And apparently it did mean something because Halloween night the street below lit up for me revealing a bunch of masked freaks wondering out of the coffee shop in numbers far larger than should have been able to fit into the damn place. And to top it all off they were ALL colored red, which lately has been an indicator that what ever I'm seeing is hostile and I need to kill it.

So, coincidentally, I used the same tactic Picasso was using since running into the hoard of them probably would have meant death. That is to say I took to one side and picked off stragglers that wondered from the group. Which was working great until one of the masked freaks from deeper within the hoard seemed to notice me and broke their normal shuffling patter to come approach me.

It was wearing a plain clean mask like the rest of them but its mask was a little different. It was missing its forehead. It looked like that piece had been broken away leaving room for a long lock of hair to rest in that spot just above the eyes leaving me to wonder if that break was intentional or not.

This freak was clearly a women, she had the figure. And she was an adult. Tall... developed. Crows feet on the eyes. She pulled out a thin stabbing needle spike thing. No optional slashing power there unless she caught me on the tip, that spike was for stabbing through and through.

I figured this was gonna be a short fight, whoever this person was had a stupid fucking weapon. While most competent people with a knife will just stab, they usually use flair to trick you into believing otherwise. Flick and wave the blade to make you commit to the wrong kind of evasive maneuver before they run you through. But this freak didn't have that. She didn't have a proper knife with an edge. She just had a stupid spike with little other course of action but to stab.

But then the masked thing spoke before driving it's spike deep into my gut. It spoke in my Mother's voice. But rougher and angrier than I've ever heard her before.

"Suffer Ivy. Suffer for what you did to Black Lake. For what you did to me and your friends," she said before shoving me to the ground with the spike still in my gut. "For running your Father through. For hurting so many people who didn't do anything wrong. Suffer and die."

And with that, she disappeared back into the crowd of masked Freaks leaving me to gawk and wheeze for air.

I grabbed my sword and dragged myself down the alley, gripping the spike. There was no light anymore. Everything was dark. My friends and family where all around me pointing and laughing. And as I passed them, they lit on fire and started screaming. Screaming so loud in my ear I had to seriously consider whether or not it would be better to just curl up on the floor to bleed out or keep going and endure what I was pretty sure was supposed to be my Aunt up next screaming bloody fucking murder and demanding to know 'Why?' as she lit on fire and crumpled to the ground.

As you can probably guess, I pushed forward and let the bitch burn. Fuck her. She wasn't even in Black Lake. Shes probably still alive. These things aren't real. That wasn't my Mother. Master is testing me. Testing my loyalty in the face of guilt. And I failed and as a result failed the mission, all because I saw an older masked women and convinced myself it was my Mother coming to punish me. But I was a good girl. I AM a good girl. Master forgives those. And sure enough, after forcing myself to push forward for what felt like hours he lit up a new Path for me and led me somewhere safe to rest.

Because Master loves me, he lets me live.

When I reached the end of the new Path, I found myself in what I was pretty sure was a hotel room. Certain I was safe now, I promptly collapsed on the floor. When I woke up I found that someone had bandaged me up. I have no idea who. Maybe Master.

I proceeded to limp out of bed and follow the Path out. And I've been slowly following it since then.

After a text from Moth and Picasso's last post, seems I'm heading for Moth now. I have to assume so at least. Can't be sure. Doesn't matter. As always, the Path will take me to where I need to go. I just hope I'm healed up by the time I get there.

Never Not Navi out.