《Acroamatic Security: Pocket Reference》


 Jimmis last words

    Greetings, fellows!


    I hope you''re all doing well. I am not, as you''ve already realized, and it''s all your fault. It would be so bloody hilarious if the cops will be the first ones to find me. Damn, I''ve laughed so hard, I spilled vodka all over this note. Need to calm down.


    Hey, Alex, you used to be Mr. Clean, weren''t you? No convictions, no interrogations, not on an FBI watch-list, no fingerprints in the database, yes? A real model citizen, huh? Don''t worry, you''re about to have a ton of unforgettable new experiences, very soon. Fucking Satanist. Only IF Lady Luck will be on your side. If not, you know who comes for you before the feds do. Huh? Are you scared? Are packing up your stuff and buying tickets to somewhere safe? Too late, mate! Distances don''t exist anymore!


    Fuck, I almost forgot.


    I''m writing this letter for the cops, not for you fuckers.


    Dear fellow police officers! I testify that Alex Morgan, Ron Jenson, and Officer Nicholas Moretti are all active members of a Satanic Cult. Ah, by the time you''re reading this, Ron Jensen should be somewhere inside the city morgue. I trust you''ll have no particular problems locating him.


    Ok. Back to business.


    Officer Nicholas Moretti discovered some sort of a book and went completely and totally mad. You must search his apartment; I promise you''ll find some very interesting stuff there. Like, diagrams and blueprints. Search his country house and you''ll find children of varying degrees of vivacity. Or is it vitality? Not sure what would be the proper term here. Don''t forget to dig all the corpses out of the backyard! Oh, yes, there are plenty.


    Moretti''s plan was simple as shit: dress up as cops, kidnap some random children from the streets, and bring them back to the officer''s country house. Why? Oh, that''s hilariously cruel! Moretti''s book had a recipe for a substance that, when used on a regular basis, would enhance a human being. The damn dream of being super-something become real! And wait for it, in the long run, one would have the ability to bend reality itself! Sounds like some bullshit magic, right? Who knows why Moretti got so hooked on the idea, and why he even bothered? But he got results. Well, sort of. The real magic occurs with a clean solution. A dirty one, and we always got a dirty one, only makes a person stronger. Really stronger, though. Why did we steal little girls? Practical reasons, they were more likely to survive the ritual of Infiltration. The boys didn''t last long for some whatever reason. No, no, it''s not what you think. It''s not what you think at all. I''m not a fan of rape! Not at all! Especially with children! Well, Ron is, I think, but, whatever, he is dead anyway. Anyway. After the ritual, a girl would enter a lethargic state and start secreting the substance. I¡¯m being vulgar again, fucking Ron, I hope you rolled over in the morgue and scared the coroner. We were just taking their tears. Just tears! Or some other sort of eye liquid. Don''t ask, visit Moretti''s small country house.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Actually, saying "we" is wrong. But I''ve been with them for far too long, so I''ve come to think of myself as being a part of the fucking team. I''m just a regular doctor. Well, not a doctor yet, just a student. But they needed some sort of medic, ¡®cause they didn''t know shit about this stuff. I watched over the kids after the ritual, I collected the solution, I... killed them. I disconnected them from the life support, I sabotaged the devices, I diluted the solution with water, or I mixed it with saline. I''ve wished that they would give it up, that they would stop torturing kids. But no! They never learned. They wanted to go deeper, further. Fuckers.


    Burn in hell Alex, for bringing me there. Burn in hell Moretti, for keeping me here. I couldn''t leave. I just could not! I knew too much and would have had all the missing children pinned on me, thanks to a certain model officer ¡°just doing his fucking job.¡±


    Anyway, ¡°we¡± wanted a clean solution. And thank God we didn''t have any fucking luck. Well, until we suddenly did (fuck you God). Or something like this. One girl didn''t become a vegetable. Slowly, drop by drop, she produced the pure stuff for us. It was too little for sure, but it was refined. Strangely specific, we could only take 7.62 milliliters per day. But nevertheless, success and fucking win.


    Ha-ha! Win my ass! After a couple of days, that girl disappeared. I was in the bar with Alex at the time, drinking myself into oblivion. Out of guilt. Or out of joy. Or both. I felt sorry for the girls, but I also knew there was only one way out of all this mess: in the box. So, I was glad that one little Angel was able to escape.


    Somewhere around midnight, Alex dragged me out of the bar and carried me home. Near the park, I went for a puke in the bushes. And then I saw her. An Angel! She was sitting there, inside the bushes, playing with a butterfly. In the middle of the night! And then she noticed me.


    ¡°Thanks for letting the sisters go.¡±


    ¡°Sisters?¡±


    ¡°Yes. And thank you for setting me free.¡±


    ¡°What are you going to do now?¡±


    ¡°Hide inside somebody and avenge all my sisters.¡±


    ¡°I can help!¡±


    ¡°You shouldn''t.¡±


    The girl stood up and begin her slow and innocent walk out of the park.


    So, I crawled after her, and then suddenly noticed Ron. He was clearly looking for her, looking for the Angel. It wasn''t clear why Ron was naked, scared shitless, and clenching a gun to himself, though. But that doesn''t matter. I freaked out, jumped right into him, and broke his neck. The Scary Doctor Death! Mu-ha-ha-ha-ha! But Alex was nearby, and Ron managed to shoot a few times. Alarming, yeah. It was a time for me to get the hell out of there.


    Later that night, the Angel came back to me.


    ¡°You have done too much for us. You''ve been letting the sisters go, you''ve set me free, you''ve started to avenge us. Now I can''t let you go.¡±


    ¡°No need to.¡±


    ¡°The sisters will be happy to see you.¡±


    Ha! Get it? They will be happy to see me! They''ll accept me! And all that''s left for you is to shiver in fear and wait for death.


    Best regards,


    the corpse in this room.

 Time is up!

    Reality check time!


    Wristwatch, analog: 08:15.


    Wall clock, digital: 08:15.


    Hourglass for five minutes: 00:00.


    I flipped the hourglass over and sipped my coffee. Grains of sand are falling down from the top to bottom. The amount of sand increases at the bottom and decreases at the top. The wristwatch ticks and the second hand moves. The wall clock blinks. All the reality check tools are working.


    Yet again, I''ve managed to make disgusting coffee. I guess I should get a wife. Or a secretary. Or a coffee machine. I''m leaning more toward the coffee machine. Although a secretary also seems like a good choice: she can make a sandwich and keep me posted with plans for a day. I''ll have to look online for prices on those things.


    Time''s up!


    Wristwatch, analog: 08:21.


    Wall clock, digital: 08:21.


    Hourglass for five minutes: 00:00.


    So, this is reality.


    I sipped my awful coffee again and looked outside. The piece of the sky still looks like a distorted digital video: a bright green rectangle with plenty of blurry squares. Neither the high school nor college prepared me for this. It is fair to say that they did not prepare me for anything at all. I had to acquire the knowledge and skills as I went along.


    Oh, well.


    Back to the outside world. There are no signs of mass hysteria on the streets: cars move, people walk. Although, from the 14th floor you can''t see a damn thing. I have to check social networks and news sites, I''m sure that an event like that did not go unnoticed.


    I got my phone out. No connection. Unfortunate.


    Okay, I''ll take some pictures and post them later when I can go online. If this phenomenon is exclusive to me, there will be accusations of photoshop and references to the all-forgotten "Matrix".


    Reality check time!


    I compared photos of the sky with the actual sky. Match. More or less.


    So, this is reality.


    I finished my coffee. Disgusting as always. Glitches are glitches, but I still have work to do and bills to pay. I put my jacket on and went to the front door of my small apartment.


    Oh, well. Time to go to work, I guess.


    A shiver ran down my spine.


    Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.Sweat broke out on my forehead.


    I almost fell into total panic.


    There was no stairway beyond the opened door.


    Just a blank concrete wall.


    What.


    I closed the door. I opened the door. The concrete.


    I touched the concrete. Yeah. Concrete it is.


    I closed the door, looked at my watch: 8:41.


    I opened the door, looked at my watch: 8:41.


    I closed the door.


    I found out my hands are shaking.


    I sat on the floor and tried to smoke. The cigarette fell out of my hands. The next one broke in my hands. And another one. The fifth attempt to light a cigarette was successful.


    "WHAT. THE. FUCK", I yelled and choked on a cigarette.


    Ok.


    Ok.


    Stop doing things and stop thinking. Stay put and get a grip.


    Breath in. Breath out. Feel the nicotine. Don''t think. Just get a bloody grip.


    Ok. Got a grip? Not really. But hands are not that shaky.


    Let''s check the door again.


    Yeah, there is definitely a concrete wall behind the door.


    Yeah, that didn''t make any sense.


    I definitely need a drink. I went back to the room and grabbed a bottle of gin. Totally inappropriate nor for the mood, nor for the time. Well, whatever. I need a drink and I will get one! And I will drink straight from the bottle, and nobody will stop me.


    Despite trembling hands and an almost panicked state, I managed to drink. Just spilled a little all over me.


    So, I need to do something.


    I started walking around my room, still holding the bottle in hand. Let''s summarize things up: I have no internet connection, I have no connections to the outside world whatsoever, I''m low on food and water. Well, to put it bluntly, I must get out of here for sure.


    But how I can do it?


    I looked outside the window: yep, still 14th floor. I don''t have enough stuff to create a makeshift rope. There are not some climbing-friendly features on the outside walls either. The jump will certainly end with death. Ok, now I have plan-B.


    Ok, what else?


    I took a hammer out of the closet and went to the door. Still concrete wall on the other side. I hit it a couple of times with the hammer. Behaves like concrete - small pieces break off, but I can poke at it like that until the end of time.


    Well, in times like this you can always use any portal-ready surface


    Well, no shit Sherlock.


    Wait a minute! I''ve just had a very weird thought.


    Not a thought, you dense motherfucker, it was a retrospective memory.


    Ok, fair enough. So, better hurry up and look for a portal-ready surface, overwise they''ll come after me the turns of the events become even more unfortunate.


    Ok, so, what do I have?


    A Tokyo subway map, maybe? Nah, I don''t know the right signals and permissions.


    An opening of some sorts? I''ve glanced over the small apartment - no luck. Well, I can try to hide inside the closet, but I died last time I did it.


    A mirror? I walked over to the mirror, a big one, almost as high as I am. It scared me a couple of times in the night. Well, it''s a mirror, it looks like a mirror, it acts as a mirror. I look like scared shit. Also, I must fix my tie it''s... I''m not wearing a tie. The reflection smiled and scattered into pieces and faded away.


    I collapsed on the floor but didn''t lose a grip on the bottle of gin. In case of emergency, always save the most valuable thing. The most valuable thing right now is my sanity.


    I crawled over to the mirror. Everything but me was reflected in it. The surface is smooth and cool and resilient. I touched the mirror; my hand went through.


    Oh wow. Not another great adventure of my life. Not this shit again.


    I think it''s time to throw a tantrum and...


    I heard a light and gentle knocking on the window.


    Ah, great.


    The bastard child of the angler and spider was pocking at my windows from the outside. I think it was smiling.


    Ok. It is fascinating and stuff but fuck it. I''m out of here.


    And I stepped into the mirror.