Antebellum

July 2009

Yeah, go ahead and laugh, fuckers. Once they find where you've put me, there will be some shit to wade through before you see the light of day again.

You want information? Sure, I'll give you all you want. It's not like it will help anyway. I come from an organization that has no official name, the organization that you guys seem to want to find so bad. What were you calling them again? Right, “Antebellum.” Something like irony might be the right term for that. We're the ones that you keep getting reports of missing persons about. We're the ones you hear stories about, we're the ones that distribute the unmarked video tapes you keep finding.

Yes, those are real videos. We don't use any special effects or whatever. We set up a camera, film the acolytes doing their thing, and then cut that straight to tape. Don't worry, you'll never see anyone you know on those tapes; we do a really good job of picking up people who won't be missed. It's the people who watch those videos that you'd likely have seen before.

Pretty much every sad soul that comes looking has watched one of those videos, wants in on the activities. They want in for the rush, the fetish feed, the feeling of power. Whatever their reason is, it's pretty sad that they think they can just waltz right in uninitiated and just scuffle about with someone's organs on their head. You know how long it takes before you can even watch someone's sacrifice? Six years. Before that time, you're just a shadow, an uninitiated shadow. You do what the acolytes say, you don't question it. You question it, and people start to forget about you.

You ever heard of the collective unconscious? Yeah, that's a load of shit, but I'll tell you what is real. The Flow. We call it something else, but it's easier to explain to people like you if we just say the Flow. It's the reservoir of memories from which the human mind draws its experiences. Something happens to you, your head makes note of it and then stores that memory in the Flow. Sometimes it reaches for a memory, and it grabs something else instead-- that's what you call deja vu or hallucinations or visions or whatever.

Well, we know how to get into the Flow and mess with the memories that are floating around there. When someone dies, their memories just get set off to float around wherever. The way we do it, we can sometimes catch those dead memories and tie them to the memories of the living, causing what we call Backfeed. You tie even one dead memory to the Flow, and people start forgetting stuff about that person. You tie all of them to it, and it's like that person never existed at all.

No, it isn't “mind control,” you stupid fucks. This is a lot deeper than any hypnosis or whatever. Why the fuck do you think nobody can remember who it is on those videos? Kind of a pity that you're still standing still, though. It'd be a lot smarter to have moved me somewhere else a while back. You call us “Antebellum?” I guess for you, the fight hasn't started yet. There's four of you, and hundreds of us. It's cute that you think you stand some chance. Oh, kill me, is that the plan?

God, you people are dumb. It does not matter if you kill me, we're still going to erase all four of you from existence. No, it is not a pleasant experience. Fine, fine, don't believe me. It'll make it all the more entertaining when you're the one on the table, the knives and saws just begging to be whetted on your skin. Yeah, I've done two or three of them. One of them, a woman about twenty two or so, stayed conscious for far too long for her own good. Made it terribly difficult to grab her memories, you know? I bet you do.

She was a stunning girl, kept yelling that her brother was a detective, that they'd find us, that we'd all be killed for the things we do. We actually missed one of her memories, sadly. You might have a faint recollection of having a sister if you try to remember hard enough. No matter how hard you try, though, you won't remember anything else--

That was unwise, detective. How do you expect me to give you information if you break my jaw? As if it mattered anyway. You're still not believing me on that, huh? You think you're just going to walk into the subway tunnels after you toss me into a prison cell, find us all huddled around a Crowley book, and arrest us all? How cute.

I'll make sure you stay awake the longest, detective.