Corrupted (Solo)

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on August 16th, 2012, 6:31 pm

Tock carried the boy's limp body, gently and lovingly, back a bit closer to the beach. She found a place out of sight of the sea, where the stone ground was fairly smooth and flat. She laid him down and then set to work, clearing away any moss and grass from the area until she had a mostly clean surface to work on. She laid the boy out there, closing his eyes and folding his hands across his chest, then kissing his forehead gently and whispering, "It's gonna be okay..."

She left him resting there for a time, for she had more work to do.

She moved away from him a safe distance, and started gathering some wood. The sun was coming down, so she didn't have much time left today. She worked sloppily, just pulling over loose brush and large branches in a haphazard pile. Then she lit it with flint and steel, starting a large bonfire.

She moved stiffly, almost like an undead shuffling around, her eyes blank and devoid of emotion. She found the body of the mother, and pulled her towards the bonfire, struggling to haul the dead weight across the ground. Working in a daze, she searched the woman's pockets, retrieving any gold or jewelry, or anything else of value. Anything worthless she tossed into the fire. Then she stretched the body out along a hard patch of ground, and took out her hatchet.

She'd seen bodies burned in a fire before. When a house caught ablaze and someone wasn't able to escape in time. The charred, blackened remains never seemed to burn all the way to ash. She wanted these bodies gone. Destroyed. Reduced to nothing more than a distant memory, severing the ties they once had to the physical world. She didn't want any evidence left behind, and more than that, she didn't want her little boy to be bound to any remnants of his family. No graves to visit, no headstones to mark where they lay. The idea left a churning in her gut, making her think of the unmarked grave her own beloved Granddad lay in. But after the rest of what she'd done today, that sick feeling was a minor discomfort.

She began hacking the woman to bits, blood splattering across her, though she didn't even bother to wipe it from her face or hair. As each part came off, she tossed it into the fire. Smaller pieces would burn easier. Once the entire body was set in the flames, she returned to the boat for the father, stripping him of anything useful or valuable, then setting the rest in the blaze. Once he was dismembered like his wife, the daughter was next.

Darkness had fallen by the time she finished. She returned to the boat, stripping it of anything she could use. She tore down the sails, and carried them, along with as much rope as she might need, to where the boy's body lay. She searched the boat for tools, valuables, and anything else. The family's clothing, she added to the bonfire, along with their log books, pictures, and anything else that marked who they were and where they had been. What she was keeping, she shoved heartlessly into her backpack. The rest she burned.

Then, lit only by the distant bonfire back in the woods, she returned to the darkened beach and climbed once more into the boat. She climbed down into the hold, and found the point where the hull met the water. She took out her hand drill, and began drilling holes in various locations. Water started pouring in immediately, though it was slow to fill the huge space of the hold. She added multiple holes to the floor and sides of the hold, then climbed back out, splashing through the rising water.

Back on land, she pushed the boat free, setting it into the receding tide. Slowly, the gradually receding waters started pulling the boat out into the sea. She watched it for a time, drifting out further and further. It was almost impossible to see how the boat was sinking further and further with each passing moment. Eventually, though, somewhere far off the shore, it sank beneath the waves, joining the no doubt countless other vessels that rested beneath the surface around Zeltiva. Lost to the sea.

She returned once more, throwing some more wood on the funeral pyre. Then she spent some time rigging the sails into a temporary tent over the area where the boy slept. She tied ropes to the nearby trees to hold it up, finally succumbing to exhaustion long after. She lay next to the lifeless boy, wrapping her arms around him and holding him close, whispering once more, "Mommy's gonna make it better..." before she drifted off to troubled sleep.

Grading Note :

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on August 17th, 2012, 2:19 am

The next morning, the 86th of Summer, Tock awoke next to the corpse. She stared at it, shaking, feeling a sick churning in her stomach. She pushed herself up on shaking hands, staring around the cold stone she had slept on. She looked around, trembling, a bit confused at first about where she was, why she wasn't waking in her own home. Then it all came rushing back in on her.

She sat back on her heels, and covered her face in her hands, starting to sob. She pulled her hands back, looking at the blood that was soaked through her skin. She let out a loud, long, aching shriek, then started scrambling away. She stumbled and fell, scraping her skin on the rocks, then clung to a tree, retching. There was nothing in her stomach, so she just dry heaved, rocking back and forth. She couldn't get the faces of her victims out of her mind. She couldn't shake off the sick feeling as she remembered their final whispered words of terror.

She glanced over through her tears, spotting the smoldering remains of the bonfire. The evidence. Slowly, she pushed back to her feet, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. She stumbled over there, still able to make out some blackened bones among the coals. Subduing her sniffles, she realized she still had work to do.

She found a long branch with a wide spread of sticks growing off the end, and used it to rake the ashes and coals together in a smaller pile. Then she piled up some more wood, and stirred up the coals, tossing in some leaves and small twigs to start the fire up again. Once she had a good blaze going, she headed back to her boy.

She forced down some food from her pack, then got started. She traced chalk circles around the body and across the stone ground, laying out the Animation circles with a joining line. The body was lying in one, and in the other, she placed the Dira puppet. She laid it down gently, folding its arms in the same way as the body. She gave it a small kiss, and whispered, "Ain't been long now, Mikey sweetie. Gotcha a nice new body, see? Nice an' 'ealthy. Ain't gonna been sick no more..."

She worked on her Glyphs next, using the same as she had before. Barrier Glyphs around each circle, to hold in the Djed flow and keep any excess from bleeding off. Balancing Glyphs in the center of each circle, under the body and the puppet, to equalize the energy in each circle. Guiding Glyphs down the connecting line, to direct the energy flow from the Source to the Destination.

Once the runes on the ground were complete, she set the chalk aside. Then she took out a paint brush, and her dagger. She straddled the corpse, cutting its shirt open to get access to the chest. Then she sliced the dagger into the cupped palm of her left hand. Blood pooled in it, and she began using the blood to paint runes on the body. Balancing runes on the forehead, to equalize the flow of energy between the puppet's mind and the body's. Then a series of arrow-shaped guiding Glyphs, one on each cheek, tracing down to the neck. From there she painted a series of Glyphs down the boy's neck to his jugular, then from there to his heart. Over his heart she carefully traced a single rune, one of merging.

She had discovered this idea, after she ran out of time for forming the puppet's astral body. Glyphs could combine the effects of magic. In this case, her goal was to combine the effects of forming the Persona and the Astral Body. Many of the memories being used overlapped in each stage. If she was programming him with the memory of what a spoon was, and instilling the knowledge that it was a tool for feeding himself, those memories carried with them the muscle memory of the actions. If she programmed him with the memory of hugging, it simultaneously held the memory of the emotion associated with it, an understanding of what arms were, and the muscle memory of wrapping those arms around another and holding them tight. All those things could be combined, programmed at once, instead of one after the other. She just needed the Glyphs to aid the process.

Once the Glyph for merging was painted over the body's heart, she added more guiding Glyphs along the arms and legs, cutting away the rest of the boy's clothes to make room for them. This would guide the energy flow through the body, helping the muscle memory program faster, and forming the Astral Body with greater ease.

Once this was complete, she mimicked the same runes, much smaller and more delicately, on the puppet. Then she stripped off her own clothes, and added them to herself. As the one guiding the energy flow, she needed to be balanced with her creation. She sat there and painted her body with her own blood, from her face, down to her chest, and down her limbs.

Then, finally, she dripped the rest of the blood into the circles. And sat there, naked, covered in runes painted with blood, to begin trying to reanimate a dead body with the mind of her lost loved one.

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on August 18th, 2012, 2:00 am

Tock was silent as she worked, ignoring the cool breezes that tickled her naked skin. Ignoring the guilt in her gut, and the horrors she remembered committing yesterday. She focused on transferring Mikey's incomplete memories from the puppet, into the body. Even with gaps, she had to believe she could transfer enough of it to bring him back. Even if he had gaps... bits of amnesia here and there, it wouldn't matter. It would still be him. His mind, his personality, his hopes and dreams. It just HAD to be...

She worked with a bit more organization this time, trying to correct the mistakes she'd made when programming the puppet. Time was no longer a factor... there wasn't a little boy's fading heartbeat to force her to rush. She began with the earliest, simplest memories, the additional Glyphs aiding her in their transfer, letting her program things in a single, melded surge, instead of multiple disconnected steps.

Djed flowed from the puppet into the boy, coalescing, melding into the corpse, forming a Soulcore. Then she skipped straight to the Persona... there would be no Directives today. Mikey would be free-willed. She didn't know for sure if the puppet's Directive to 'not sleep' would transfer along or not. But she thought that Directive had been a mistake, and didn't know any other to use. She didn't want to program him to be forced to obey her, or to have anything other than his own natural mind, his own will. So she left him Directive-free.

She continued laying out the most basic concepts first. Simple objects. Definitions. She didn't have to worry as much about the order, since the Glyphs helped carry everything over at once. There was still a certain flow to it, a technique she was still feeling out. The Glyphs could only help carry directly related concepts and definitions, so there was still an importance of order.

She could transfer something like a concept of 'food,' and carry with it simultaneously the act of chewing, swallowing, and the hand motions that went with bringing food to your mouth. It flowed together as a single concept, though she still then had to add definitions of types of food. Yet these could be carried over in groups now as well, the concept of a tree laid out with images of multiple types of fruit hanging from it. Instead of each type of fruit flowing one after another, they transferred as a single concept, held together by the balancing Glyphs that allowed the thoughts to be carried like on a single tray. Then as the multiple connected Djed streams flowed across the connection, the merging Glyph over the boy's heart caused the streams to weave together like a braided piece of rope, melding them into a single, core concept.

She carried forth more concepts in a similar manner, core concepts like mother, father, brother, and sister merged into a single understanding of 'family'. It poured into his heart and through his soul, settling into the body, the Djed flowing throughout him until the balancing runes caused it to settle like water poured into a glass, wavering for a moment before growing still.

Throughout the day and into the night, more grouped concepts were transferred. Animals being taught along with the understanding that they were meat, that meat could be eaten. Toys, games, and throwing a ball transferring with the concept of 'playing.' With the emotion of 'fun.' An understanding of water transferred along with drinking, bathing, swimming. And with all of these things, the words to describe them were carried along, imprinted directly onto the memory.

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on August 18th, 2012, 2:18 am

She had spent four days programming the puppet. It thus took another four days for her to transfer all the memories into the new body. She would have spent more time, would have programmed more into him, but there simply wouldn't be anything left to transfer after that. She sent forth the concepts in carefully selected groups, building a strong foundation. Thoughts of clothing along with memories of dressing, an understanding of each article flowing along with their names and knowledge of where they were worn. Thoughts of bodies flowed along with the names for each part, arms, legs, hands, feet.

Over the days, once these basic concepts were programmed, she moved along to the more complex things, the things she had programmed too early last time. Running along the beach, climbing trees, playing catch, hugging, piggyback rides. With the other concepts laid out in advance this time, these laid in place more easily; a hug was far easier to program when he already understood family, and arms, and how to move them. The complex motions of throwing a ball were easier to program when she'd already imprinted the concept of playing, and the earlier arm motions of eating.

Actual memories came last this time. Before she had rushed to program those, thinking they were the most important, the most crucial to get into his mind in time. But without that stress to hurry, she was able to program the crucial concepts needed for the memories to make sense. Thus by the time she transferred the memories of their time together, he already knew what bodies and toys were, making it easier for her to teach him about puppets, and make him remember the puppet shows she'd put on. She'd already taught him about food and playing and hugs, so it was easy to transfer the memories of her playing with him, feeding him his meals in the infirmary, and sharing loving hugs before she left each night. She'd already programmed him with an understanding of family... and thus it was easy to imprint a memory of herself along with the definition of 'Mother.'

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on August 18th, 2012, 2:52 am

For four days she piled on the memories, pausing only when she needed to eat or sleep, working all through each day and into the night. All that remained of the boy's family was ash, though their blood still stained her unwashed skin. Each new morning she repainted the Glyphs in her own blood, whispering softly to the boy's corpse that it would all be over soon.

Along with each memory programmed, she added the movements needed to perform the related actions, laying them down as a foundation for later. She programmed the arm motions needed for using a spoon or fork, for hugging, for waving, for throwing a ball. She programmed the leg motions needed for walking, running, and jumping. She added the facial motions for smiling. She hadn't formed the Astral Body yet, but by programming in the understanding of the motions as she went along, that understanding would be there when the body was formed. It wouldn't entirely eliminate the last stage of the programming; she would still have to teach the boy HOW to walk, and how to use the other motions. But if he already understood what walking was, what motions it used, then programming the muscle memory and shaping the soul to use its body would be a cleaner, smoother process.

As the days passed, she started to run out of memories to program. There were gaps... huge gaps in what he knew. Part of the problem was there were years and years of Mikey's memories that she hadn't been able to transfer before he died. Yet another part of the problem was the corrupted bits. Parts of the programming that had been critically damaged during the process. She didn't know how to repair those corrupted patches, so she simply didn't transfer them. That left more gaps... blank places in the child's mind that she couldn't fill in. But she believed they would be filled in over time. He'd be able to re-learn things the normal way. If she had to teach him by hand, show him things that he couldn't remember any more, then she'd do that. Even if it took years of guidance.

It hadn't yet occurred to her that the corpse couldn't even survive that long without rotting and breaking down.

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on August 18th, 2012, 4:56 pm

When the woefully limited number of memories was transferred, and there was nothing more left from the original Mikey to program, she stepped onto the Source circle herself. She had to form the Astral Body, and make sure he knew how to move. The Merging Glyphs had helped her lay down the foundation for muscle memory, and now she just had to sculpt the soul to fit this new body, and allow it to move.

Her body aglow with Djed, she began with simple movements. Raising or lowering an arm. Opening and closing a hand. She continued the movements again and again, until the glowing body before her began mimicking the movements. Her heart skipped a beat and a sob choked through her the first moment he raised his hand, showing signs of life.

She spent hours working him through arm and hand motions before she moved on to the legs. Slowly, she worked him through the movements until he was able to stand, wobbling on his legs like a toddler. He'd learn to walk better over time, she was sure. But just getting him through the first steps now was enough. She worked him through walking motions until he could at least keep himself upright, then taught him to open his eyes, giggling and clapping her hands when she saw those beautiful blue eyes open for the first time. The corpse clumsily clapped along with her, the motions a crude mimickery. A puppet controlled on strings of Djed.

Once she got his eyes and ears working, there was one last thing. He needed to be alive. His heart had to beat. She laid a hand over her own heart to feel the rhythm, holding her other hand out, squeezing her fingers in a pumping motion again and again, until the corpse's heart was pumping once more.

Then she added in the final lifespark, and said, "Mikey, wake up. Wake up and come ta Mommy..."

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on August 18th, 2012, 5:10 pm

The corpse stood there for a moment, unmoving. Tock tensed, her breath caught in her throat. Then it lurched forward, and her heart started pounding. It took a few shambling steps, and Tock clapped, giddy with excitement. "'At's right!" she called out to her precious boy. "Come ta Mommy!"

It only managed a few steps before tripping and falling flat on its face. Tock gasped and hurried forward, lifting the body into her arms. "Baby?" she asked, stroking its face. "Is you okay?"

It stared up at her with dull eyes, the eyes of a dead thing. Unblinking. She hadn't programmed blinking. She'd... fix that later. Her chest tight, she pulled him up and said, "Mikey... Sweetie?" She touched its face, which was slack, lacking emotion. She hadn't programmed it how to smile.

"Does ya know me?" she asked. Tears welled in her eyes. "Talk ta Mommy... gimme a 'ug..." She wrapped her arms around the corpse, and it clumsily raised limp arms around her. She sobbed with relief and held the cold, mostly limp body against her chest.

"Yer okay now, baby," she told it. "Mommy fixed ya..."

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on August 18th, 2012, 5:31 pm

She left it sitting there for a few minutes while she tore down the sails she'd strung up as a tent. She stirred the remains of the old bonfire once more, adding in some fresh wood and using her flint to relight it. She tossed the sails on, burning away the last evidence. Then she dressed once more, and pulled her pack onto her back.

She returned to the corpse, which was still sitting there, unmoving. "C'mon, Mikey," she told it. "Let's go 'ome..." She held her hands out to it, but got no response. She took its hands in hers, and started guiding it to its feet. The corpse clumsily rose on wobbly legs, and she started guiding it away, eager to get it home. It followed with clumsy, shaky steps, barely capable of the overly complex movement.

"Why so quiet, sweetie?" she asked it, her eyes, overwhelmed with the stress of the last few days, searching for some sign of Mikey's sweet personality in the corpse's dull face. "Talk ta Mommy..." She had programmed it with words. Why wasn't it talking? She didn't yet grasp that its lungs weren't working, and no air was passing through its vocal chords. She didn't yet understand that she had only programmed it to understand words, yet she had never taught it the extremely complex lip and tongue movements needed to form them. That she hadn't programmed enough of the complex inner workings needed for life. Its heart beat, but there was no feeling in its nerves, no ability to move intricate facial muscles to smile, laugh, or express itself.

She hugged it, and kissed its forehead, and took the puppet motion of arms wrapping around her in return as sign that it was really alive, and loved her.

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on August 18th, 2012, 5:48 pm

She walked for a time, guiding it along with her, hoping it would get better at walking with practice. Its movements were so stiff. So lacking in life and character. But it would get better...

"Ya 'ungry, sweetie?" she asked it, after they had moved some distance from the Automaton's 'birthplace.' "'Ere, let's 'as lunch..." She had barely eaten for days. They stopped, and she guided the corpse to sit, then she pulled out some of the remaining food, dried fish from the Svefra family's boat. She broke some pieces of the meat off and handed them to the corpse. "'Ere ya go, sweetie. Ya ain't ate nothin' fer four days. Must be starvin'..."

The corpse went through the motions of eating, as she'd programmed it. Lifeless arms raised food to its mouth, and its jaw worked mechanically up and down. It didn't swallow, and bits of food just fell out of its mouth and down its chest. "Yer makin' a mess, sweetie," Tock whispered, wiping his chin with her fingers, her own dull, lifeless eyes staring at the corpse, which she was still trying to convince herself was now alive...

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on August 18th, 2012, 6:31 pm

After lunch, they continued on, and Tock spent some time talking to the corpse, hoping to prompt a response. She held its cold, decomposing hand in hers, her chest tightening with each mile that passed without a word from the corpse to indicate whether Mikey was in there at all. She told it stories about her time in Mura, about her adventures in Ravok, and about the statue she was building in Zeltiva. Yet she got no response from the corpse but a cold, lifeless stare.

After a time, the ground became rougher. Tock was having trouble moving along the rocky ground. "Be careful, Mikey," she told the corpse. "Dun wantcha ta 'urt yerself..." Of course, the limited language she had taught it didn't include words like 'careful.' She had focused mostly on nouns, defining objects and people it would need to understand. A concept like 'being careful' or 'getting hurt' was more complex. Such things hadn't been put into the corpse's mind. Thus its lack of understanding of the danger, along with its clumsy, poorly programmed movements, led the corpse to stumble and fall, cutting its face on a sharp rock.

"Mikey!" Tock cried out, kneeling down to lift the corpse gently, cradling it in her arms. Artificially pumped blood flowed from the wound, but the corpse's nerves were dead, and it showed no reaction of pain. Tock held it close, taking out a cloth to dab at the wound, trying to stop the bleeding. She didn't yet realize the skin would never heal, the biological processes of cell regeneration being beyond her understanding. She thought as long as its heart pumped, that made it 'alive.'

"Ya gotta be more careful, sweetie," Tock whispered, a cold dread seeping into her voice. Tears filled her eyes, a slowly dawning horror starting to spread across her face. "Mommy went an' gotcha a new body. Ya needs ta be careful wit' it..." Her voice was hoarse, her lips trembling.

She helped Mikey back to its feet, kissing its cold cheek, and running shaking fingers through its hair. "I wish ye'd say somethin'..." she whispered, feeling a deep, clawing dread in her heart...