The Facility

We speak now of Halina. The traveller. Let us remember her as she was.

As a child, she dreamt of the stars, and through dreams, she travelled through the vast cosmology of her inner space. Her father painted heavenly bodies on the ceiling above his daughter’s bed. She hugged her dog Katyusha and fell asleep gazing up. Ascension. In those days, she did not know that exploring the cosmos requires a descent. She never dreamt of the things whose wing flaps cause the stars to flicker low.

The ignorance axis runs parallel to the bliss axis

Initiate the secret histories.

Let us say there was a Soviet fort, hidden in Transylvania. This seems plausible. Let us say secret experiments were done there – of course that is what happens in such places. There were secret documents, obviously, marked by the Red Hand. Let us say that cosmonauts showing psychic promise were brought in for testing. They were taught to detect and channel particular energies that we shall call anima and anti-anima. They sought the stars – first up, then down – first out, then in. It would not surprise you, sweetling, if we said something went wrong. Horribly wrong. Everyone died – some screaming – some laughing – some singing, “We are all made of stars!” Everyone died, except for Halina. Of all the cosmonauts, she had best mastered the exploration of the inner-outer spaces, and she alone survived the discovery of their crawling truths.

Will you chase Halina, sweetling?

Follow the radio signals – her voice riding the hiss-pop-crackle. She calls out to the stars. She calls out to that which makes them shudder. Find the radio telescope. There is a hole nearby, dug through by a vampiric brute, a diseased and degenerate specimen, His function is twisted and ugly, and he is of no consequence. Make him sleep.

Enter the facility, Halina watches you. She and an AI program have formed a co-dependent relationship. They continue the great experiment.

Energy signature detected. Leviathan class.

The Soviet scientist never discovered what caused the energy spikes in this place, but Halina did. She channelled the anima and then the anti-anima, the Filth – the liquid voice of omnipotent mollusks. Something reached out to the cosmonauts. It cut into them, so that they could cut into the cosmos. There is hunger here that bites holes in space.

There is a pit, full of the Filth, held back by a shield of energy. What do you think, dear sweetling, are the chances that it’ll hold?

You will find two doors – a door to Agartha and a door to the Dreaming Prison.

Filth constructs detected. Manifested shapes: that of Halina’s dead teammates. Assessment loneliness.

She so longed to see her precious stars. That is how the sleeping whisper tempted Halina. She joined the whisper. The differences between her and the whisper decline. She changes. See the stars in her chest. By and by she shall become the avatar of a malignant fractal. Initiate probability matrix – the only possible outcome is violence.

The static and crackle. Halina sent out so many calls. Long after she is gone, after his planet is dust, after your sun collapses to a gravity smear, her voice will survive as a radio wraith, exploring the universe as she always wished.

Poor Halina. Sleep now, little one. Sleep as you did when a child, and smile and dream of the stars that scream.