Internal

(Voiceless voice)

I was birthed by the wind, I think when I say that, it could be confused as a metaphor but it isn’t. I learned how brutalizing it could be to be born with a mind and body before I could even perceive myself. The scale of subtle air to raging windstorms held me in ways that I don't remember ever being held by with humans. Thunderstorms, gushing rain on my skin, the quiet that came with those conditions made more linguistic sense to me than conversations with those who were supposedly my kind. That sort of isolation or maybe it's better to call it pain… trauma? It took a lot of anxiety filled observation to come to understand.

I think I was 10 when I came across the term objectum sexuality… I thought maybe it was a step in understanding my relationship to plants. I was incorrect. The wind birthed me. I saw her as my true mother, I believed that humanity stole me away from my home. I still believe that? Minus the blaming humanity part, I think I held a bitterness that I couldn't comprehend at the time. Thinking of the way people senselessly plucked flowers without consent or the fact that I was raised to use the word “it” for anything outside of “human”. Felt so gross to me… oppressive in a way I had difficulty processing.

I was 13 when I came across the generalized description of the Jainism belief system… I thought for a moment I found the explanation for why I spent twice as long walking to my destination, staring at the ground, to carefully avoid bugs and micro insects I couldn't bear to kill. I got anxious crossing grass, nauseous thinking of eating any living individual that could feel pain. I apologized when I accidentally bumped into a tree. I apologized, eating plants. in the times when I had too much space to think I would cry in realization that I wasn't born a plant. Walls, floors and other so-called objects came from living beings… and at times it felt that way. There were certain spaces that held this pressure. I couldn't pinpoint the exact reason why. I still get confused, they probably had souls… like the trees and could also probably feel pain in their own way, it felt like they were being silenced and fed the lie that they were inanimate objects…

I wasn’t a jain. I didn’t exist in illusion, I wasn’t delusional nor did I have a warped understanding of existing. I was diagnosed with Autism at 26, in addition to ADHD, extreme empathy, Synesthesia, CPTSD and DID.

(Voiceless Voice)

I fear people.

I fear abandonment, Isolation , I fear absorbing other people's pain, a lot of fears were remedied by my relationship with trees. I also found solace in comprehending my physical form as having the same structure as mushrooms and moss, divided equally into a hybrid.

I fear illusions, the concept of reality makes no sense to me. Dissociative. That’s one of the first descriptors my psychiatrist said to me, every psychiatrist since has used that word. Reality is a strange idea, human bodies are only able to perceive a small fragment of sound, smells, colors, tastes and touches known to exist. Even what we do perceive is altered depending on your brain development.

I fear rationality, it’s just as insidious as perfection, a pillar of white supremacy. It’s cruel in the

ways it destroys the wonder.

I fear the oppression that comes with being a marginalized neurological type, in this allistic

neurotypical world it's dangerous having my kind of brain ... Did you know that the average life expectancy for us is 36 -38? If you reach 40 you’re considered an elder who made it... and it's not related to illness it’s literally oppression. I’ve spent the majority of my life analyzing and mimicking allistic behavior, memorizing anything I could find that seemed to be a reflection of their hidden rules, expectations and order... 26 yrs running myself sick with burnout and unknowingly abusing my body and in turn shortening my life span... When I tell allistic people about my diagnosis they get this quality in their eyes, they glaze over, their face goes blank and I’m met with bone chilling silence... It’s strange to think about how many years I’ve dedicated to them... In the black community there's this saying “we know more about white people then we know about ourselves or they know about each other.” Allistics are to Autistics what white people are to black people.

(Voiceless Voice)

I think in 3 dimensional vibrant colors, films and movement, Most words have shapes.

Textures and sounds carry flavor, and can vibrate in ways that make me nauseous or make my

chest and brain float above my head. Most senses land in my mouth, especially smells. The

forms that words take when landing in a sequence on my tongue leaves an imprint that spreads throughout my body.

I might be a romantic or maybe I’m hypersensitive in a way that developed into romanticization

as a baseline for soothing?

I feel very comfortable with darkness. Spent most of my existence getting thrashed around in a

vortex of it. I know the different shades and palettes that depression, especially grief can bring.

The gray kind, the one that's green, blue is the most comforting and pink leaves you feeling

distorted. The deepest is the transparent form that colors you empty.

I have a mind, body and soul that’s coated with the thick smell of longing, I like the taste. I soak

in it, bathing, washing, drinking, eating. I even release myself into it and wait for the inevitable breeze to bring me back.

(Voiceless Voice)

How do you feel about fog? Does the height or density change for you?

(Voiceless Voice)

Pleasure, affection, tranquility, wonder… at times even Isolation.

People. I adore people, I always have, but in the way you adore an abstract concept that's awe - inspiring because of its ability to grind you into confusion, while also holding a fascination large enough to prevent your release.

Balance, in my body. There are so many existences, 8 people living in one entity is a flood.

To be able to see the raw capacity and processing of another. It's the reason I don’t lay out my whole translation of languages or work. It’s to prevent worship while also laying the boundary of respect and autonomy. Allowing others to go into themselves without the authoritative voice of my perspective. Limitations are interesting in that way you start floating in your own construction when there aren't too many instructions.

Yes, I do have a least favorite way of viewing, I think anything surface level is boring but that doesn't mean it isn't allowed it just points to an incompatibility.

Tranquility, to be in a space of reflection that is material enough to ground others in their body, while also leaving space for self questioning or just existing if that’s what they need… I want to form a pocket for them to slip into for safekeeping or experiencing without the encouragement of complete dissociation.

(Voiceless Voice)

I spent most of my life daydreaming, creating spaces or running fully constructed films in my mind. The narratives felt as real as what existed outside of myself.

I dream in invisible species, I dream by floating, sinking… sinking usually leaves my body with the most pulsing glitter, I seek that out the most.

I dream in games, ones without hands and feet, ones that stain the air, sometimes these games involve digging until you break the shovel, other times the games involve sleep, breathing or trying to feel the end of my stomach.

(Voiceless Voice)

I don’t know, I guess in my head… I’m still trying to find that answer, maybe that's the reason behind why I still continue. I like to grasp on to the idea of creatures, of morphing and the blends in between what we can process, and what they process, and the pleasure hidden underneath that conflict. Whenever I feel intensely connected to a corner in a room, a glass of water, that thought makes me feel better. Thinking about how there are our plants, objects and sensations living among us in this exact moment with no human visible trace.

(Voiceless Voice)

Water… At least that's what it has me believe it is. It’s endless, an ocean with no landmass in sight, it holds memory of everything I’ve ever been, believed I was, wanted to be or feared I would become. They flow. I spent the majority of my life thrashing. I think it's interesting when I think back to the amount of paralyzing fear it used to bring me. As a substance it seemed like it had no heart or mind and therefore did not care for my survival in its turbulence. Now I realize that they do have a soul and that in the erratic movements, there's a sense of neutrality, I think its extremely important for me to comprehend. They held concepts, and the remains of those who existed before me, I hold it dear now. To be honest they are too transcending to actually know, but I don’t think that's the most enriching method of survival, knowing I mean. I’ve found that they have a control of the space I exist in and me consistently nourishing that space has brought me the closest I can get to tranquility.

(Voiceless Voice)

There were 3 distinct cycles, depending on which period you focus on, these cycles would either become invisible, shadowed by another or intertwined. One is people based, caring and nurturing, the other is based on pleasure and the last is the most potent and acts as a feeding tube for the others…

(Voiceless Voice)

It led me to pursue the gradient between effort and effortlessness, and led me to study flowing.

It led me to grow an attachment to the liminality in beauty, the beauty that's organic, that includes cycles, birth - death, light - dark, beauty that doesn’t have to subscribe to a scale, hierarchy or superiority, rotting and decay is placed in the same line as flourishing. It exists outside the notion of opposition, it’s neutrality. Ugliness is a defining factor not the negative. In my personal belief that definition of beauty is the definition that nature places itself in… you know if you think about it, if beauty kept its original meaning it wouldn’t really be something necessary to examine or debate over it’d have the same position as breathing. Something we take in cause it just is.

It led me to deconstruct illusions, perceptions… focusing on sustenance. Imaginary for me is more reality than reality, “it” in its purest form contains “self” without the manipulation of societal expectations or judgment. It’s just you.

(Voiceless Voice)

What part of your structure makes it possible for them to run through you? Do they feel wispy? When I feel them it feels like they’re overtaking my body…

(Voiceless Voice)

My purpose is to care, be thoughtful, retain compassion and prune away at aspects that force me into excruciating pain. I’ve lost the ability to pretend, to fluff or mimic, it tears away at my skin now.

In a way this practice is me clinging onto softness, to curiosity, to hope even in the face of the invisible structures of colonialism and capitalist oppression.

This is my oldest understanding of friendship, having spent the majority of my life alone in my head. The one thing I know will keep me alive is what exists in my head.

External

(Voiceless Voice)

My split needs, confusion, loneliness, the turbulence that existed in isolation. Everything external that wasn’t grounded in soil… I think it formed as a way for me to become comfortable with deep water, the heightened sensation of other people’s pain, and a way of grasping that’s like digging out a hole and placing it into soil.

I felt the need to nurture, intimacy is so magical, the layers involved in peeling back different kinds of intimacy kept the emptiness away. I don’t feel comfortable speaking, a large chunk of the time I can't speak well. My old therapist used to call it verbal panic attacks… in actuality I’m selectively mute. She didn't suspect that I had this kind of brain. She also described me as dissociative, said that my imagination was extremely overdeveloped and that my unintentional collecting of people's subconscious feelings was left over from childhood trauma. She also agreed that I was hyperfocused on wonder, thought too deeply about being and felt too strongly about pleasure.

Passion, pleasure and play are coping mechanisms but I also think they’re the core reasons for breathing.

The most genuine intimacy with a stranger is through bodily needs. Eating and feeling has never failed to pull me out of empty, and I don’t mean the survival kind. That’s probably why I prefer circles.

Wind feels like circles.

(Voiceless Voice)

I started by mapping where I ended and others began, from there I labeled the gradients between I and them.

I work like a spider.

I needed to find ways of processing the weight of other peoples bodies on my body, their feelings on my feelings while also containing a method that reduced negative projections enough to leave space for them to be… at least that’s what i want.

(Voiceless Voice)

It lives in the outer tips of my body, ends of my fingers, center of my palm, ends of my feet and the lining around my body.

The practice is in the air left over from the movements made with my body and the knowledge retained from this exploration.

(Voiceless Voice)

What’s it like living in a spine?

(Voiceless Voice)

Protection is important to me, this protection is in the balance of nourishing myself, while also retaining the belief of abundance. The myth of scarcity has a way of poisoning creation, slicing cracks into the foundation held by curiosity and wonder. My existence in this “post” colonial, late capitalist system is strenuous. Intention is also a coping mechanism.

Everything is developed slow

Everything involves the tedious touch of my hands

The concept of perfection doesn’t exist in this realm of creation. Excellence is poison, blemishes, flaws and miscalculations are a remedy in their acceptance of fluidity.

Objects exist in relation to bodies, in a sense objects live alongside bodies.

(Voiceless Voice)

I have a deep discomfort with being perceived, and the narrative others choose to create to represent who I am

There's this thing I’ve noticed with people who have brains outside of my scope of understanding… they do this thing, I don’t know what to call it but it’s not masking, it’s not mimicking but it looks the same from the outside, i think i’ll call it matching each other? It’s common in all groups regardless of their structure. It can sometimes feel like they all share the same brain? Which I know theoretically isn’t true but it’s the reason behind there being an insider or outsider? It’s the reason also why disabled people are tortured, discarded or erased. I’ve found this “thing” in small one on one interactions, in spaces supposedly focused on liberation, black and brown queer communities… this “thing”, this matching… it makes me extremely cautious, uncomfortable and hyper aware in ways that are paralyzing… often leads me to shutdowns that include mutism, I become nonverbal… There was even a point in my life where this lasted for approximately 6 yrs… all my speaking was either nonexistent or reduced to small clusters of words, just enough to not be punished.

I’m wary of the feeling of exclusion, which has brought me to transforming my mental landscape into a place of internal intimacy.

I can’t depend on acceptance.

I’ve grown to enjoy invisibility, it’s safe. But that statement itself, although true, is extremely complicated, contradicting. When I do desire visibility it has to be done very carefully.I look for it in quiet, minimal spots intertwined with pleasure or being cradled in beauty, where humanity is never threatened and the position I’m in, is like them staring at a pond and suddenly seeing a frog perched on a leaf. They’ve come to realize I was always there but I’m still in an environment where I can easily seep back into the wall, blending seamlessly.

(Voiceless Voice)

By focusing on enough

By giving the work directly pointing to me a life cycle that prevents commodification, and the work that is just a reflection is related to the body in a daily sense, objects meant to exist with not just to gaze at.

Challenging forms of exploitation, while also having a balance in my need to nourish and provide for myself. It's also important to be careful to not exclude those who can’t afford my labor.

Allowing space for trading and exchange.

Avoiding traditional galleries and museums, it’s necessary to protect the souls living in the object I’m responsible for creating. I think one of my worst nightmares is them being held behind glass in an institution tied to weapon manufacturing or being put to auction to aid the 1% in money laundering.

By giving what I can without exerting my disabled body, prioritizing slow production and caring for myself will help me avoid burnout and injury

Centering disabled people, because for a lot of reasons they’re the reason I was able to survive. They are me and I’m them.

(Voiceless Voice)

Truth, whatever that may be for the individual and I don't mean in the sense of them handing it over, but just an internal experience they have in themselves.

Enough. I think beautiful words like prosperity, growth and progress have been bastardized so in this context it’s important to make a distinction, strip away the capitalist definition and focus on the meaning that centers accountability and earthly knowledge. When I use these words they should be aligned with the natural, with curiosity, nonhuman consent and are in direct correlation with the internal world of a human being.

Eventually human community, that’s not a thing yet, at least in the full sense. I greatly enjoy solitude. I've had to develop that enjoyment but I think connectedness is essential and in a way this gives me a format to bypass the language barrier and go straight to the root.

(Voiceless Voice)

That’s a hard question. It’s a form of cultivating hope and building a disciplined practice in hope.

It gives me a structure with enough built in risk to mimic the actual foundations of vulnerability in mutual connection. In this perspective, I’m made to believe in what I can’t fully know, trust in sweetness, the gentle fragility in human existence and the power carried on through my lineage of sensitive people .

It gives me a basis where I have to trust myself and in turn the process.

I am a network, with 8 nodes splitting into thousands of micro connections, boundless. With subsections formulated from the potency of conscious unconsciousness, each division is linked. In order to comprehend one, one must comprehend all.

Form:

Form is species, elements and organic materials with souls. Form is the sequence of tales with a narrative structure that fluctuates between first person, third person, and inanimate features simultaneously. Although it exists in multiple perspectives, it is absent of chaos. Form is methodology focused primarily on the idea of the pursuit for emotional care and centering the body’s hidden archive. Form depicts the elaborate conversation between my conscious self and the archaeological living remnants of my subconscious. No one perspective is held in higher regard than the other. The form of an object holds secret languages developed in collaboration with my internal body, languages predominantly in color, languages focused on shape, and languages drawn from the outlines of processing’s soul. Form is related to the subject matter through this methodology in the format of secrecy / Protection = “riddle”.

Form is related to subject matter through materiality. It is vast landscapes, created belief systems, and states of ‘Body’. Form is the matter of transition from methodology to internal sociology. Form is the frozen aspect of atmospheric thought. Concepts sit in a liminal space and form is the structure where liminality is birthed and exists.

This process of creation is the structure made to protect and house the ‘soul’.

Shape:

Shape is the skeletal structure that binds the sections of language, aligning with the functions of each division. It is inside, outside, on top of and in between Form, having the fluidity and rigidity needed to connect each part. Shape is a shifter, containing enough certainty to retain the position of the chameleon. Shape has no connection to Material, but allows form to digest enough to absorb Material’s essence. Shape is the silhouette of immediate research, swift and compressed. Although having no relationship to color, Shape, like color, is one of the strongest tools for ascension.

Material:

Material is a tightly woven system of graphs, each material holds color, texture, and temperature value connected to a category of systems organized through my sensory processing. This organization is by weight, atmospheric opacity, and elemental value. All of which encapsulate the complete system of material energy.

Tone:

The tone is one consistent mode, it has infinite faces, like a circle as one being. The tone is chromatic; its color has organs, skin, bones, a core, and living objects on its surface. The tone is obligatory, similar to breathing or drinking. The process of making is necessary to my continued life (metabolic). The tone is blunt truth, a compulsion sitting at a fluctuation between urgency and tranquility. The tone is elusive, like sound and smell are invisible entities with no base, the concreteness of existence sits in all levels of consciousness, fast, slow, puncturing, stabilizing but cast in hidden force. The tone is the only aspect that is not coded, it holds the pure energy of the subjects in ‘The Process’. The directory of tone lives on the outer membrane of the shadow space, with stems penetrating to the nucleus. The presence passes through a filtration system only leaving behind the concentrated solution in the embers. The tone is the house of feeling. Tone does not hold texture, texture is picked up through tone’s relationship with feeling.

Word:

Word is clear.

Word has the same purpose as Shape, but unlike Shape it is grounded in the human flesh, and holds the markings of that history. Word is for that reason the most coltish, having an abundance of curiosity. It holds a lavish coat of wisdom that allows for all the other pieces of The Process to be able to transmit themselves to the External… Word is the most generous, allocated to unswerving hope. Although holding the most yearning, Word still exists in distance from External.The challenges of this Methodology are as listed.

- Challenge 1: breathing

- Challenge 2: balancing secrecy / protection while trying to retain a connection to those open. A solution is the act of deciphering or dipping the work in emotions, those who decode can exist in companionship with the work. Those who don't, see the work through their own emotions which is also an act of connection. The only format that is “wrong” is to see the work purely as aesthetically pleasant, but even then it points to incompatibility, meaning the connection between the viewer and I is ill matched. The work is not meant to be absorbed by everyone, that goes against the entire practice and is a threat of dilution.

- Challenge 3: Developing a space / boundary system where the work can be engaged with but has clear structures in place to prevent the tainting or violation of the souls existing in the work. (An ethical system)

- Challenge 4: Making a liquid solution, the solution holds memory. The solution is the instrument used in the ritual of dissection, containing the ingredients of clarity and compassion needed to connect the process.

- Challenge 5: Translating my microbiome.

- Challenge 6: Healing antibiotic organisms through metabolic processes (eating/digestive system)

- Challenge 7: Chameleon (absorption vs. dissolving)

- Challenge 8: Transformation, the inevitable conclusion of perpetual change and the unknown.

As the response to the inevitable process of change I have developed a list of commitments and skills to retain the core of my belief system.

- Skill 1: I developed a deeper symbiosis with my multiple parts, I no longer feel the need to mask as an individual. I am a system, a dissociated system. Which leads to my first commitment.

- Commitment 1: Shape shifting, centering all 8 nodes in the structure that is my system.

- Skill 2: in terms of density my work has thickened in potency as well as complexity from the discipline that is empathy. Committing to the act of sensitivity and the defiance of Whimsy. This in turn leads to …

- Commitment 2: Daydreaming being placed in the forefront.

- Observation of commitments and skills: Deterioration of fear in the core of loneliness, realization that loneliness is inevitable and loneliness is a friend and through that compassion for the External has deepened.

The foundation for this process is solidified by …

- My child self, my future self, my teenage self and my current self.

- My other half, the reason I continue to exist. The person who was born only 2 years after me, who I held an extremely deep connection to, who helped me retain my softness and through their unexpected death I concocted a life-long promise that has shifted my perspective on healing, care, connections and purpose.

- The people living in my body, the 8 nodes that hold the spectrum of my experiencing.

- The imprint I leave on others in their lives, and in turn their relationship to people and connections. My intention to never leave a poisonous stain, but to align with nourishment in the shape of a fleeting glow or depth.

- Joy, pleasure, feeling and processing pain

- Plants, water, earth, air… seeing the soul in all, acknowledging spirits even with the threat of needing to be perceived as rational or sane.

The research for the Process goes as follows…

- Sleep, eat, be in body, feel, cry, nurture, see and daydream.

- Writing about all forms of perception that happen in my body.

- Sitting with plants, hearing them, caring for their autonomy.

- Thinking about flaws, blemishes, mishaps.

- Researching forms of wisdom beyond human, always positioning myself in the place of not knowing enough and existing in a perpetual state of curiosity.

- Taking comfort in the relationship between the unknown and fluctuation/inconstant states.

- Creating lists

- Isolation, quiet, forming a mental protection capsule, preventing body dissociation, noting body dissociation.

- Making a mental wormhole when in dangerous spaces (Ex. overwhelming sensory soups)

Through trying to map the core, calculating the misty coordinates of each sector the process has become an inevitable subject. In an effort to clarify the measurement of liminality in this space, I have found that it is a space that is morphing, questioning and consistently confused or curious. The process is not only a method to find understanding, it is the very subject it seeks to understand. Metamorphosis is its baseline, there is no constant state. It is fragmented, like the system it studies and can only be deciphered with the tools it questions.

Symbiosis is the format of its language, the different sensory organisms, souls and histories all winding into its own concoction of a hive mind. Polyphonic thinking, the swirls, slashes and rhythms of thought fill every millisecond of bodily life. There is no ability for processing outside of this structure. This work is the beginning of the depiction of the structure that making exists in. Each aspect points to the function of how ideas and creation is sown (the underbelly of comprehension, intention then action.)

Cloud Children: Book 1

- Body sank to the pit of the liquid foam, it felt similar to the slippery substance that Body couldn’t grasp… but this was colder, not in the temperature type but in the shape… Kinda like thick skin but not solid, more runny sharp, and able to seep through anything.

- Body didn’t try to breathe, just stiffened once the engulfing happened, and waited until the liquid decided to lift them back to the parts that tasted more like air.

- Body’s chest was thick and sticky, filled with odd pieces of decomposing daydreams. The center held a solid form that Body couldn’t identify. It’s been there, morphing, absorbing, the texture constantly changing from a dirty numbness to a stinging object with hairs like a cactus.

- Body gagged, the sour mildew crawling up their throat, as it did at the end of every shift.

- A tiny voice tickled through Body’s body “You need medicine”. The voice curled its shell like shape, peeling itself from the outer layers of Body’s gut.

- Body wondered how Voice’s glittery gray scales were able to survive such an acidic pool. No thicker than paper Voice still had the ability to be birthed.

- “Sink, Deepen”, Body listened, tired of their aching muscles. They sucked in, pulling their consciousness into the back corner behind their nose waiting to feel the gurgle, before allowing the thought of warm earthen dirt to yank them beneath.

- Body sank, flooding into an underground cave system covered in groaning ice. Pixilated figures quivered beneath and within the chunky surface, they let out a moaning breath each, one with a combination of high pitch guttural frequency, the other containing the same palette as evaporating precipitation collected from the outside of a bubble.

- The Cave slurped Body through it’s tunnel, regurgitating them back into a surface that was moist, plump and held a depth that made them catch their breath twice, in rapid succession.

- The Voice, now glistening with translucent chilopoda innards glided above Body. Joints floating, materially made up of compressed silk and limbs carved from water.

- “Do you feel pain?” the question twinkled in front of Body’s conscious. Voice, no Ghost applied a pressure to the internal section of Body’s forehead, wedged between thought and perception.

- “Yes,” Body answered.

- Ghost explained to Body that they needed a temporary ointment. One that will allow them enough time to find medicine.

- They must gather salt from dripping skin. The weight hanging from their second lung. And using the back of their thumb they must extract a particle from their taste bud, hang it on their breath by hunching over and exposing their throat.

- Body did so.

- Ghost rippled, apologizing for not being able to physically help… they were weak and could only think in whispers.

- Body looked at Ghost making a mental note to make sure Ghost was cared for and always protected.

- A rush of blush textured thread strung its way through body’s fingertips and toes, slithering up Body’s thighs before settling as a puddle between Body’s lower chest and upper gut. It felt cool… tasted like creamy mint.

- Body felt calm.

- A beating light surrounded them, everything was crunchy with a glossy fullness, round waves of sound washed through the dense walls of black.

- Body’s vision came in pieces, the cave structure jigsawing into a violet tint.

- “You need another,” Ghost gleamed.

- Body needed a companion. They both sensed it without explanation. The spot between Body’s inner and outer forehead bloomed.

- They breathed… Body was low, weak yet needed to continue.

- They crawled through the only direction available, a U shaped crack beneath the surface. It felt slimy.

- Body cradled Ghost to make sure they were shielded.

- On the other side was a long hill, poking through mist. Body’s mouth tasted salty, like it was filled with nutty seaweed.

- Ghost informed Body how they would get a companion. They needed to craft them from 5 ingredients found on that hill.

- Body scraped some goo from the cave and gathered some liver straw from the ceiling.

- Ghost explained to Body how to weave a small sack with the fluffy straw as they sifted their webbed feet in and out of the sand, they waddled along. The ground was squishy and deep causing them to take two cycles of light and dark to get to the hill. They could only rest for so long. Body was unable to fully allow themselves to fall into the deep.

- Once they got to the hill, They began to gather.

- One arm length of purple swallowtail stems from the wetlands found on the southern region of the hill, cut them into strips, being careful to collect the clear sap found in the hollow inside. Ghost explained to Body the technique needed to shape a fever rock sharp, avoiding the yellow blotch found near the base. They emphasized how to slice without harming their hand with the ghoul beetle. They still did, accidentally angling the critter upward. lucky for them the cave goo was perfect for healing a cut. They scraped the excess goo oozing from the interlockings of the sack, grateful the excess took so long to dry.

- Body scooped the dust collected from the grinded down rock, they would keep a small collection of each ingredient they found. They couldn’t risk not having resources they needed, especially with Ghost so weak.

- They went on, gathering the cocoon bone, measuring the circular expanse, a circumference of roughly 8 hands. Shaking to hear the liquid trapped inside, it had to be just ripe. Body would only know if the water held a low crystal beam. Double checking, Body thanked the prickly plant for their fruit before moving on.

- They slide down the southern slope of the hill, positioning their lower half downward to bear the round impact of fuzz. Body felt a flood of pressure bound by this sugary sensation blending into their skin, they floated up sinking into the thick air before gently gliding back down.

- Ghost hovered over a red static fluff, It was soule down. Body gradually separated it from the soil, being sure to not crush the bright amber seeds hidden in the clumps. 3 handfuls.

- Flowing down the current of the wind’s pressure, Body and Ghost walked along the edge of the hill. Ghost reminded Body they needed to find nourishment before the ointment vanished. Body understood.

- They walked along reaching a dip amongst the soil, it was filled with water. Placing the ingredients on the still surface, the dip tunneled inward before going quiet. It was connected to the ocean, the ingredients needed to be soaked to extract the seasalt and could only be wound with velvet kelp found in the deep.

- They had to trust that after being soaked, Passion would grow and find them.

- They wandered for 3 cycles of light and dark, a stream coated pink meeting them with each ending of a path. It was in the ending of the fourth light when they heard a small whisper of a voice, Ghost and body followed it. The voice led them to another dip in the soil. The placing was different from the last, yet indistinguishable in every other way. It wasn’t solid, it held the consistency of the edges of a cloud but had the texture of milky orange. Body couldn’t understand why it felt the same, maybe they couldn't remember?

- Passion crawled out.

- Body felt warm. A deep glowing prick drifted under Body’s skin.

- Passion was black.

- Body placed Passion on their shoulders attempting to walk, but buckled.

- Passion concerned, digged a tiny hole, just large enough to sink their feet.

- The wind casted over them, sealing them with a hardened shell of goat petals.

- Foulsh slugs emerged from the black soil, they’ve been following Body from beneath, tracking the soft blush light pattern from Body’s soul. They slip around the flower shell, their slime forming a film on the cocoon. Body was in and out of consciousness, a gloom colored the negative of sunlight washed in and out of Body’s core.

- It was an extension, the source long, twisting and unknown.

- They used the geess plant straw to feed a concoction of medicinal herbs to Body, It created a pool inside the cocoon, feeding body nourishment.

- Body tasted bitterness, they could only hear distance.

- 4 darks go by.

- Body senses an orb. They peel their way through, following the glow.

- The slugs inform Body that they were only able to heal the external wounds and feed Body strength, Body would have to find the rotting and heal it into compost.

- Ghost, Passion and Body continued on, following the earth.

Break

- Body, Ghost and Passion come across a meadow, the grass, indigo blue swept across the field dancing in rhythmic, quick paced ripples. The rolls directed them to a cluster of dark barked trees with long dangling leaves, silver tinted.

- Beyond the trees sat the stream coated pink, now a raging river 10x it’s former size.

- They would need to cross, but in order to do so carefully they have to form a floating mound.

- Ghost concentrated their smoke to the center of their bristled spine, smooth liquid grazed the surface of gray. They glittered even brighter, trying to uncover the next fragment of their concealed path.

- “We need to collect ghost flowers”, Body’s forehead throbbed. “We need to go to the curve in the river bank, there we’ll find the broth caterpillar… they solidify in different sections of the cave throughout the day, they should be there before dusk”

- The ground bubbled as they walked, the palms of their feet feeling dense, an invisible pressure formed a space between the surface and the grass. Turquoise bleeding silver.

- At the edge of the land the sparse forest condensed, plump trees saturated with hues ranging from wispy thin to carmine, shifting along the ridge. The air felt mismatched, mangled into inconsistency, intertwining one gravitational weight with another.

- Body’s left shoulder felt weighed down and gooey, their left hip weightless straining to stay on the ground. Right arm spotty, unleveled, right leg digging into the molasses textured ground.

- A spiraling wind overtook the space, the edges of its borders tornado like, neither of them moved. Their positions seemed locked in an invisible square container the exact size of each of their bodies.

- Body looked over at the Passion, Ghost was only an arm brush away, whereas Passion was by the seam of the river. They were hunched over gazing down at a spot in the ground. Body could hear breathy whispers coming from that direction, Passion’s impression was unmoved.

- Passion’s body began to jolt, shifting perspective and visibility faster than Body could fully process. It was only a breath after, before Passion began digging uncontrollably into the soil.

- A burst of pressure grazed Body’s skin.

- There, 3x the size of Body, appeared the broth caterpillar.

- They looked fluffy, cloud-like. Their furry skin the consistency of raw wool, mauve sap and veef shells.

- They circled Ghost and Body, it was then that Body connected that the spiral wind was created by their presence.

- They synched with Ghost, not exchanging words but transmitting meaning through the movement of their eyes and breath. Body felt it.

- The broth caterpillar glanced over at Body, tilting their head forward to cough up a saffron colored sack.

- Body bent over, reaching to grab the sack.

- They pulled out a small pack of cave goo, placing it in front of the being.

- The broth caterpillar brushed the top of Body’s head, before twinkling into vanishment. Only a small dent was left where the being was once placed.

- Passion was sitting in a hole 2 feet deep when Body and Ghost found them. The lining of the hole was covered in a powder that held a vibrant erratic shade.

- Passion had 5 ghost flowers placed on the ground and was organizing a collection of objects in a small pouch crafted from an umber colored leaf.

- Body gathered the sting poking through the forest floor. 3 in total approximately 6 palms long each.

- They dug the sting 3 hands deep, tangling the tip with the remaining umber colored leaf, the 5 ghost flowers concentrating at the top and the mystery solution found in the saffron sack.

- Stepping back, the creation slowly engulfed itself into a colorless flame, burning bigger than all their forms combined.

- In its place sat the mound, massive and encased in soil.

- Ghost stepped in first, then Passion.

- Body hesitated transfixed by a reflection of a mound mirroring this one, it was floating on the pink waters, eaten by flames.

- It was 3 dimensional identical in every way except for the blackened soil caused by the raging fire.

- Body gulped, then stepped. They watched as the entrance to the mound grew closed and the imagery of the reflection disappeared.

- As the mound swayed across the pastel river, Passion noticed Body began to grow cold.

- Body felt a tugging. The figure was flush against Body’s body, not in physicality but in the way sound settled on the skin, the energy moaning in that specific guttural pitch containing a high frequency.

- Passion studied as Body began to sink into the deep. Before the negative light could claw in, Passion reached into their pouch grabbing the boava root ‘they’ instructed to save and placed it on Body’s stomach.

Break

- They rested, spending 5 cycles of light and dark in the mound.

- When they woke, They found that the mound was embedded in a crater lake, vast, filled with a thick solution that held an unearthly stillness.

- The mound peeled, an opening large enough to fit the width of one body. The air trickled in bringing the scent of onion layered confusion.

- Passion took out 3 small oval shaped objects, the size of the tip of a pinky. “They told me we need to swallow these.”

- “What are they?”... Before Passion could answer, the ghost replied “Vagnuw nuts.”

- “What do they do?” Body questioned.

- “They will allow us to cross. This lake is old, there are reflections living here that can cause the body to sink underneath our feet. It’s a form of protection for the lake. If we fall…” Passion paused before the next statement “our body will grow into fragments.” Passion handed each of us a tiny encased kernel “Put this underneath your tongue, they act as an anchor when they dissolve.”

- “How did you know to grab the nut?” Body didn’t intellectually know the answer, but the moment they felt that question a different kind of understanding washed through them. There wasn’t an answer.

- One by one they placed the nut underneath their tongue. They took turns pushing through the small opening, pausing to scan what layed beyond the hole, before beginning to cross the water.

- There were lilly pads scattered across the opaque white surface. Ghost was the first to move, floating to the first pad, then blowing a breath on the pad, to push it closer to the mound. Passion proceeded waiting for Ghost to blow the next pad and then slowly transferring to the next.

- As they navigated the lake, Body felt what happened to Passion before they entered the mound. The encounter happened through the form of unseeable bubbles, and the metallic discoloration containing the composition of a list.

- When they reached the soil, Body noticed how the pad blowing made Ghost even dimmer than before.

- Passion grabbed two lily pads, folding one into a large pouch for Ghost and the other divided into pieces to add to our container.

- Ghost whispered, informing them they needed to follow the smell of the purple perspiration. Only with their eyes fully closed could they feel the soil on the soles of their feet, it would enhance the low smell, and once they reached Tree, the feeling of weightlessness in their chest would confirm the next steps of the journey.

- They did so, walking along the edge of the lake to reach the blue cast, along the way Passion collected 6 ink pitch shells, an ox urchin and 2 clusters of beetle sponges.

- Body left the lake a swallow tail, waiting for the still waters to lift. They watched as the lake sucked the stem into the white before turning away, and entering the cast.

- Tree was large, towering in the middle of a sunken forest filled with color-shifting beings. Their skin was the texture of black velvet and burnt gold.

- It wasn't until they smelled Tree that body understood, Tree was one of Ghost's roots.

- Tree reached a branch towards Body. The branch wiggled, telling Body the medicine on Body’s neck is almost completely absorbed and that a piece of the mound was stuck in Body’s body. They also were told that the mound held their memory, and they’ve made the mound before and the cave was imprinted through the memories encased in the mud. There was a link and the only way to unlock these connections was to find a plant somewhere in the north that was dripping in scarlet rain.

- Tree handed Body a seed. They informed Body to plant it once they figured out how to transform the rot into compost.

- Before they could find the plant they would need to build armor for Ghost, the first treatment for the rot, and a communication box.

- They rested Ghost on the base of Tree, getting the ingredients from Tree’s extended limb and positioned themselves on a patch of exposed dirt.

- They spent one moon cycle in the sunken forest. Each light was spent searching for the necessary factors for each object. Their dark falls were filled with quiet, slow concentration and meticulous inner searching.

- 3 light cycles to find crinkle fruit, covered in cobalt tipped brown spikes, with the exact touch of the underbelly of a bur tail moth.

- 4 darks to gather brissel veen the length of a disappearing sleep puddle.

- Amber grease roses with exactly 2 stems each took half a light.

- And the peel of a garga leaf, casted in the exact shade of a burning stump took 3 lights to track.

- On the last dark spent searching, they gathered fallen Onyx from the Durian copper tree, extracting the potent pigment from 7 of the fruits.

- The remainder of the moon cycle was spent carefully crafting the armor out of the garga peel, infusing the grease petals with the crinkle fruit to form the first treatment of the rot. The stems of the roses were intertwined with the fallen onyx fruit, before transferring the pigment into the hollowed out crinkle spikes, and binding it with the brissel veen to make the communication box.

- Resting for an additional moon cycle, they collected various leaves, roots and stains. Examined their body and focused on being unmoved.

- In this period of stillness, Body decided to plant the seed given by Tree. They planned to share whatever was grown, rather than hold the growth internally.

- When the plant produced four fruits, Body knew it was time to continue following the frequency of the soil with the soles of their feet.

- With each step away from the sunken forest the purple morphed, shifting from a bright lavender hue to a capricious violet, and then spelunking into the darkest shaded plum. Their breath was absent of light. The air felt heavy with a honey coated mud scent. They were headed to the river bank on the opposite side of the lake, they were looking for a cave.

- The cave would be found somewhere on the side of a mountain, cradled with moisture.

- Body was feeling the dark pit as it grew with each step. Clawing them closer to the deep.

- Void.

- They heard them before they saw their blackened limbs.

- Ghost froze, confused and cautious.

- Passion was curious.

- They, the entity, was bubbling over with fear entrenched in knowledge beyond their capacity. They seemed so fragile to Body.

- Body handed Passion and Ghost the fruit they grew, before walking over and handing the fourth fruit to the entity. It was them that kept pulling Body towards the deep.

- Shadow was so angry, held too vast of a perception to tend to it alone.

- “Eat,” Body made sure to gaze at Shadow, before they looked at Passion and Ghost.

- As they all ate the fruit, they felt a bright orange sizzle through their chest.

- Shadow calmed, watching as Body patiently waited for them to finish before handing them some goo. They rubbed it on their chest.

- They felt seen.

- This wasn’t the first time Body, Ghost, Passion and Shadow had met, they were interwoven. Their souls lingering in a dwelling that went beyond the question of who was who and what was what.

- This was however the first time Body, Passion and Ghost grasped Shadows existence, focusing on not just on what was most digestible to perceive, but the whole feeling of what could be felt and perceived.