All The World Will Be Your Enemy 40: Seven Minutes in Heaven

Darkness engulfed Beverly, a thick, suffocating blackness that seemed to press in on her from all sides. She blinked, her octopod eyes straining to make out even the faintest glimmer of light, but there was nothing, only an endless, impenetrable void that swallowed her whole.

The events of the past few moments played through her mind in a dizzying, fragmented blur. She remembered running from the therapist’s office, bursting out into the street in a blind panic, only to be grabbed by unknown assailants and forced into the back of a waiting SUV. Had they blindfolded her? She couldn’t remember, couldn’t focus on anything beyond the pounding of her own heart and the ragged, gasping breaths that tore from her throat.

The smell of the car filled her nostrils, a cloying, artificial scent of air freshener mingled with the acrid tang of cigarette smoke and the faint, lingering odor of sweat and fear. The sounds of the engine, the muffled roar of traffic outside, the creak and groan of the vehicle’s suspension as it sped through the streets, all blended together in a disorienting cacophony that made her head spin and her stomach churn.

But then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the sensory onslaught fell away, replaced by a stillness and a silence that was somehow even more unnerving than the chaos that had preceded it. Beverly’s tentacles twitched and coiled, her muscles tensing as she tried to make sense of her surroundings, to latch onto something, anything, that could anchor her in the darkness.

And then, like a bolt of lightning piercing the blackness of a stormy sky, a scent hit her, a smell that was at once familiar and utterly alien. It was the scent of a teenage girl’s closet, a cloying, heady mix of perfume and hairspray, of sweat and hormones and the faint, lingering traces of cheap alcohol.

In an instant, Beverly knew where she was, knew with a sickening, gut-wrenching certainty that she had been here before, that this moment, this sensation, was a twisted, nightmarish echo of a memory long buried in the depths of her fractured psyche.

She was in Norma Blake’s closet, playing Seven Minutes in Heaven with Wayne Riddle, the nerdy, awkward boy she had harbored a secret crush on throughout high school. Outside the closet door, she could hear the muffled chants and catcalls of her classmates, their voices blending together in a drunken, raucous chorus of encouragement and anticipation.

With a trembling, hesitant motion, Beverly reached out into the darkness, her tentacles groping blindly for the boy she knew must be there, for the warm, solid presence of Wayne Riddle in the cramped, suffocating confines of the closet.

But when her tentacles made contact, when they brushed against the cool, slick surface of another’s skin, Beverly felt a jolt of shock and confusion run through her like an electric current. For the body she touched was not that of a human boy, but of something else entirely, something that she recognized with a sudden, sickening lurch of recognition.

It was Angele and Joanna, their octopod forms intertwined with her own in a tangle of limbs and tentacles, their presence a jarring, impossible intrusion into a memory that had no place for them, that could not possibly accommodate their existence.

And yet, even as Beverly’s mind reeled with the sheer wrongness of it all, even as she tried to make sense of the twisted, impossible reality that had engulfed her, she felt a surge of relief, of joy, of something that might almost have been called happiness, washing over her like a warm, comforting tide.

She clung to Angele and Joanna, her tentacles exploring their bodies with a desperate, frenzied urgency, her mind and senses consumed by the sheer, overwhelming need to touch them, to feel the solid, reassuring presence of their forms against her own.

They kissed, their octopod mouths meeting in a strange, alien dance of tongues and teeth and tentacles, the sensation at once foreign and utterly, perfectly right. Beverly lost herself in the moment, in the sheer, blissful relief of connection, of the knowledge that she was not alone, that even in the depths of her madness and despair, there were still those who cared for her, who would stand by her side no matter what horrors lay ahead.

But even as the warmth and the closeness and the sheer, intoxicating pleasure of the moment built to a crescendo, even as Beverly felt herself teetering on the brink of a release and a catharsis that she had never known she needed, the world around her began to shift and warp once more, the darkness of the closet giving way to a blinding, disorienting light.

She blinked, her eyes struggling to adjust to the sudden, jarring change, and found herself staring up into the faces of Angele and Joanna, their expressions a mix of urgency and concern as they shook her awake, their voices high and tight with a fear that Beverly could not begin to comprehend.

“We have to go,” Angele said, her words tumbling out in a rushed, desperate torrent. “We have to get out of here, now, before they find us.”

Beverly’s mind reeled, her thoughts a jumbled, fragmented mess of memory and delusion, of the impossible and the all-too-real. She stared at Angele and Joanna, her tentacles still tangled with theirs, and felt a sickening, vertiginous lurch of confusion and despair.

Were they real? Were any of them real? Or was this just another twist in the endless, nightmarish labyrinth of her own shattered psyche, another cruel delusion designed to torment her, to keep her trapped in the suffocating, inescapable prison of her own madness?

She didn’t know, couldn’t begin to untangle the twisted, impossible knot of her own fractured mind. But as Angele and Joanna pulled her to her feet, as they gathered her octopod parents and fled into the waiting darkness, Beverly felt a cold, creeping sense of dread beginning to take hold, a sickening certainty that no matter where they ran, no matter how far they fled, the horrors that had claimed her would never truly let her go.

For she was lost now, adrift in a sea of madness and despair, a prisoner of her own twisted, unraveling mind. And as the darkness closed in around her once more, as the last, fleeting glimpses of light and hope and sanity faded into the endless, yawning void, Beverly knew that her nightmare was far from over, that the true depths of her suffering had only just begun.

Not. The. End.

All The World Will Be Your Enemy 39: Therapy

Beverly sat in the therapist’s office, her teenage octopod body seeming to shrink into itself under the weight of the silence that filled the room. The therapist, a middle-aged woman with kind eyes and a gentle smile, had been trying for the better part of an hour to coax Beverly into talking, into opening up about the pain and trauma that had consumed her since Gabby’s death.

But Beverly remained stubbornly, resolutely silent, her tentacles tucked tightly against her body as if to shield herself from the probing questions and well-meaning concern of the woman across from her. She knew why her parents had arranged this session, knew that they were worried about her, that they had seen the way she had withdrawn into herself, become distant and unreachable in the wake of her best friend’s tragic passing.

But how could she explain to them, to anyone, the true depths of the horror that had consumed her, the twisted, nightmarish reality that had shattered her sanity and left her a broken, fragmented shell of her former self? How could she put into words the gut-wrenching terror of being buried alive, of feeling the weight of the earth pressing down upon her, the fetid breath of the imaginary monster hot and rank in the suffocating confines of the coffin?

The therapist leaned forward, her voice soft and gentle as she spoke. “Beverly, I know that what you’re going through is incredibly difficult, that the pain of losing someone you love can feel like an unbearable burden. But holding it all inside, refusing to talk about it, isn’t going to make it go away. You need to let yourself grieve, to process the emotions that are tearing you apart from the inside out.”

Beverly felt something snap inside her, a sudden, white-hot surge of anger and defensiveness that burst forth from the depths of her fractured psyche. “You don’t know anything about what I’m going through,” she snarled, her tentacles unfurling from her body like the coils of a snake ready to strike. “You have no idea what it’s like to be trapped in a nightmare you can’t wake up from, to feel like your own mind is a prison, a torture chamber that you can never escape.”

The therapist’s eyes widened, a flicker of surprise and concern crossing her features. But before she could respond, Beverly was on her feet, her tentacles propelling her towards the door with a speed and agility that belied her fragmented, unraveling state of mind.

She burst out of the office, her chest heaving with ragged, gasping breaths as she fled down the hallway, the sound of the therapist’s footsteps echoing behind her. Beverly didn’t know where she was going, didn’t have any destination in mind beyond the desperate, all-consuming need to escape, to put as much distance as possible between herself and the suffocating confines of the therapist’s office.

But as she stumbled out into the street, her eyes blinking against the harsh, unforgiving glare of the midday sun, Beverly felt a sudden, sickening lurch of fear and confusion. For there, idling at the curb, was a black SUV, its windows tinted and its engine humming with a low, menacing rumble.

Before Beverly could react, before she could even begin to process the sight before her, the doors of the SUV swung open, and two men emerged, their faces hard and expressionless beneath the brims of their dark, nondescript hats. They moved with a swift, brutal efficiency, their hands closing around Beverly’s arms like vices as they dragged her towards the waiting vehicle.

Beverly screamed, her tentacles flailing wildly as she fought against their grip, but it was no use. The men were too strong, too determined, and in a matter of seconds, she found herself being shoved into the back seat of the SUV, the door slamming shut behind her with a sickening, final thud.

As the vehicle pulled away from the curb, the therapist’s cries of alarm and protest fading into the distance, Beverly felt a cold, creeping dread beginning to take hold, a sickening certainty that whatever awaited her at the end of this journey would be worse than anything she had ever faced before.

For she was alone now, cut off from everything and everyone she had ever known, a prisoner in both body and mind. And as the SUV sped through the streets, the city blurring past the tinted windows in a dizzying, nightmarish haze, Beverly could feel the last fragments of her sanity beginning to crumble, the twisted, malevolent forces that had consumed her mind tightening their grip on her shattered psyche.

She had thought that the horrors of the grave, the suffocating darkness of the coffin and the fetid breath of the imaginary monster, were the worst that she could ever face. But as Beverly huddled in the back seat of the SUV, her tentacles trembling with fear and despair, she knew that her nightmare was only just beginning, that the road ahead would be a gauntlet of horrors beyond anything she had ever imagined.

And in the depths of her fractured mind, in the dark, haunted corners of her psyche where madness and despair held sway, Beverly could feel a cold, creeping sense of hopelessness beginning to take hold, a sickening certainty that no matter how desperately she fought, no matter how hard she tried to cling to the tattered remnants of her sanity and self, there could be no escape from the twisted, malevolent forces that had claimed her for their own.

Not. The. End.

The Orange Man (Final Transmission: “The Index of Untranslatables”)

By way of explanation: I am easily bored. This usually leads to me getting into trouble in real life. In my writing, however, I can explore avenues of storytelling and the only fallout from that is the eye-rolling exhaustion experienced by my readership (there’s so few of you that I’m not overly bothered by that). This current experiment is based on a simple story: a man on a breadline makes a daily habit of handing one particular woman his orange. The goal is to see how weird I can make the retelling of the story each week. Simple, right?


This document is not a story. It is not even written.
It is decoded each time someone imagines it.
It exists only at the final moment of understanding, just before you forget everything else.


ENTRY #000

THE LINE
Not a queue. Not a wait.
A spinal column. A relic. A procession of selves lined up across dimensions to receive an echo.

Every version of you stands in this line somewhere.


ENTRY #002

THE MAN
Sometimes old. Sometimes faceless. Sometimes a broadcast signal given posture.
Always giving. Always hooked.
He is not a character.
He is a delivery mechanism for the next phase of belief.


ENTRY #004

THE WOMAN
Unidentified. Immutable. Infinite.
She receives. She evolves. She inherits the story until she becomes it.
Some call her Hollow. Others call her Seed.

You may call her You.


ENTRY #007

THE ORANGE
Never fruit.
Always offering.
It is a device. A metaphor. A symptom.
It is the only warm thing left in a world that has forgotten what giving means.

It is peeled from the body, formed from intention, passed on without recognition.

You do not eat it.

You carry it.


ENTRY #009

THE GLITCH
Not a city. Not a program. Not a metaphor.
The Glitch is the stage where language fails and story becomes self-aware.

The Glitch is why each version changes.
The Glitch is who is telling it.

The Glitch is you, getting bored—and getting dangerous.


ENTRY #010

WHY 73 TIMES
There is no sacred number.

Only the illusion of completion.

The 74th time is the first true one.


ENTRY #011

THE FINAL ACT
He gives the fruit.
She takes the fruit.
She becomes the giver.
The fruit changes hands.
The story changes shape.
And somewhere, in the orchard of collapsing realities,
something roots deeper.

The tale is not spreading.
It is awakening.


ENTRY #FINAL

YOU
You read the story.
You enjoyed it, or didn’t.
You laughed, or felt unnerved.
But you read it all.
Every iteration.

That is the final act: Reception.

Now it is your hand that feels warm.
Now it is your skin that tingles.
Now it is your turn to decide:

Do you take the orange?
Do you give it?
Or do you write the next version?

The story does not end.

It multiplies.


Not. To. Be. Transmogrified.

All The World Will Be Your Enemy 38: Buried Secrets

Beverly found herself standing at the edge of an open grave, the somber black of her funeral attire a stark contrast to the vibrant, pulsing hues of her octopod form. The air was thick with the scent of freshly turned earth and the cloying sweetness of funeral flowers, a sickening combination that made her stomach churn with grief and revulsion.

Around her, the faces of the mourners were a blur of shifting, amorphous features, their voices a distant, muffled hum that seemed to come from a world far removed from the nightmare reality that Beverly now inhabited. She clutched a single rose in her trembling tentacles, the thorns biting into her flesh like the sharp, piercing teeth of the imaginary monster that haunted her every waking moment.

As she stepped forward to toss the rose onto the polished wood of Gabby’s coffin, Beverly felt a sudden, sickening lurch of vertigo, as if the ground beneath her feet had suddenly dropped away. She looked down, her eyes widening in horror as she saw not the smooth, unblemished surface of the coffin, but a window, a clear pane of glass that revealed the twisted, nightmarish truth that lay within.

For there, lying still and silent in the satin-lined confines of the casket, was not Gabby’s body, but her own, her human form pale and lifeless, a mockery of the vibrant, adventurous girl she had once been. And in that moment, Beverly felt her consciousness being ripped from her octopod body, dragged down into the suffocating darkness of the grave, into the cold, unyielding embrace of death itself.

She screamed, a raw, animal sound of terror and despair, but no sound escaped her lips, swallowed up by the thick, oppressive silence of the coffin. Above her, through the window that now felt like a cruel, taunting barrier, Beverly could see her teenage human self, her lips twisted in a wicked, malevolent smile as she waved goodbye, her eyes glittering with a dark, unholy glee.

Beverly clawed at the coffin lid, her tentacles scrabbling against the unyielding wood as the first shovelfuls of dirt began to rain down upon her, each one a suffocating, crushing weight that drove the air from her lungs and the hope from her heart. She was trapped, buried alive in a nightmare from which there could be no escape, no salvation, no redemption.

As the darkness closed in around her, as the last glimmers of light were swallowed up by the relentless, unyielding earth, Beverly heard a sound that made her blood run cold with a terror beyond anything she had ever known. It was laughter, a grating, metallic cackle that filled the empty spaces of the coffin, a sound that could only belong to one creature, one twisted, malevolent being that had haunted her nightmares and tormented her waking hours for as long as she could remember.

The imaginary monster was there with her, its fetid breath hot and rank in the stifling confines of the casket, its presence a tangible, suffocating weight that pressed down upon her like a physical force. Beverly lashed out, her tentacles flailing wildly in the darkness as she kicked and screamed, her mind and body consumed by a blind, animal panic that knew no reason, no logic, no hope.

And then, with a sudden, wrenching crack, the coffin lid gave way beneath her frenzied assault, splinters of wood and shards of glass raining down upon her like jagged, razor-sharp teeth. Beverly clawed her way upward, her tentacles digging into the soft, yielding earth as she dragged herself out of the grave, out of the suffocating darkness and into the cold, merciless light of the world above.

Behind her, she could hear the monster’s laughter fading into the depths of the grave, a mocking, taunting reminder of the nightmare she had just escaped. But even as she hauled herself over the edge of the hole, her tentacles slick with blood and dirt, Beverly knew that her ordeal was far from over, that the horrors that had consumed her mind and shattered her sanity were not so easily left behind.

For she was still an octopod, still a twisted, alien creature trapped in a world that made no sense, a world where even her most cherished memories and deepest desires could be turned against her, wielded like weapons in a war for her very soul. And as she lay there on the cold, damp grass, her chest heaving with ragged, gasping breaths, Beverly could feel the weight of that realization pressing down upon her like a physical force, a crushing, inescapable burden that threatened to drag her back down into the abyss of madness and despair.

She had escaped the grave, had clawed her way out of the nightmare that had consumed her. But as Beverly stared up at the shifting, amorphous faces of the mourners that surrounded her, their features twisting and warping like reflections in a shattered mirror, she knew that her journey was far from over, that the road ahead would be a gauntlet of horrors and trials beyond anything she had ever faced before.

And somewhere in the depths of her fractured mind, in the dark, haunted corners of her psyche where the monster still lurked, waiting to strike, Beverly could feel a cold, creeping dread beginning to take hold, a sickening certainty that even if she managed to claw her way back to some semblance of sanity and self, the scars of her ordeal would never truly heal, the wounds inflicted upon her soul would never fully mend.

For she had stared into the face of madness itself, had been consumed by the twisted, malevolent forces that lurked in the darkest recesses of her own mind. And as Beverly struggled to her feet, her tentacles trembling with exhaustion and fear, she knew that no matter how far she ran, no matter how desperately she fought, those forces would always be with her, waiting to drag her back down into the depths of insanity and despair.

Not. The. End.

The Orange Man (Clinical Bulletin 6: “O-Rx: Controlled Peel Therapy”)

By way of explanation: I am easily bored. This usually leads to me getting into trouble in real life. In my writing, however, I can explore avenues of storytelling and the only fallout from that is the eye-rolling exhaustion experienced by my readership (there’s so few of you that I’m not overly bothered by that). This current experiment is based on a simple story: a man on a breadline makes a daily habit of handing one particular woman his orange. The goal is to see how weird I can make the retelling of the story each week. Simple, right?


⚠️ FOR CLINICIAN EYES ONLY
CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL – O-Rx PROTOCOL 6.13
DO NOT DISCLOSE TO SUBJECTS, STABLES, OR EXTERNAL ASSETS.
If exposed to the contents of this bulletin, report for debriefing and dermal audit within 12 hrs.


🔶 PRODUCT NAME:

O-Rx (Peel-Modulator, Subdermal Fruit Complex)
Codename: The Orange Man


🔸 INDICATIONS:

O-Rx is indicated for use in environments suffering from:

  • Ontological Dissonance
  • Chrono-Loop Fatigue
  • Pattern Starvation
  • Breakage in Ritual Circuits
  • Fruitless Longing

🔸 DOSAGE & ADMINISTRATION:

One unit of O-Rx must be cultivated intradermally by a bonded donor subject (Designate: Peel-Originator). Extraction occurs via ritualized exfoliation—typically from forearm, shoulder blade, or subclavicular coil. The harvested unit will resemble:

  • A tangerine
  • A warm, humming egg
  • A memory of a promise
  • All of the above

The unit should be passed, without comment or acknowledgment, to the target subject (Designate: Hollow-Receiver).

This cycle must repeat for 73 iterations.

On the 74th, discontinue.

Do not observe what follows.


🔸 MECHANISM OF ACTION:

O-Rx is a self-replicating symbolic vector. Upon receipt, the “fruit” begins encoding its host at a conceptual level, replacing inert personality fragments with ritual software. The subject experiences mild euphoria, citrus hallucinations, and a sense of recursive purpose.

Note: The orange is not a food. Attempts to consume may result in involuntary flash-seeding.


🔸 ADVERSE EVENTS:

Common:

  • Palmar fluorescence
  • Dream-seepage
  • Peripheral orchard hallucinations

Uncommon:

  • Skin becoming rind
  • Voice harmonizing with offworld fruit frequencies
  • Temporal reflux

Rare:

  • Germination
  • Limb orchardization
  • Direct communication from the Gardener (see Incident #GRDN-PR33N)

🔸 CASE STUDY SNAPSHOT:

Subject #HLLW-7
— Female-presenting, early 40s, appeared in the breadline system unprompted.
— Accepted O-Rx dosage daily without deviation.
— Exhibited expected transformation markers by Day 39 (Patch Growth, Hunger Shift).
— On Day 74, she initiated propagation: self-extracted unit and administered to unknown minor.
— Subject’s dermal reading: “YOU GIVE NOW.”

Line integrity restored. Cycle resumed. Orchard node confirmed.


🔸 STORAGE & HANDLING:

Keep out of direct causality. Store in cool, memory-sealed location. Do not expose to linguistic definition.


“The fruit is the messenger.
The hand is the garden.
The line is the root.
Pass it on.”


To. Be. Transmogrified.

All The World Will Be Your Enemy 37: Sanctuary

Beverly’s tentacles propelled her through the twisting, nightmarish labyrinth of the city, her heart pounding with a terror that threatened to consume her. Behind her, the imaginary monster from her childhood loomed larger and more terrifying than ever before, its guttural roars echoing off the crumbling walls of the alleyways.

She darted around a corner, her breath coming in ragged gasps, only to find herself trapped in a dead end, the towering brick walls boxing her in like a caged animal. The monster’s footsteps grew louder, its fetid breath hot on the back of her neck, and Beverly knew with a sickening certainty that this was the end, that she would be devoured by the twisted manifestation of her own deepest fears.

But just as the creature’s jaws began to close around her, a door in the alley burst open with a deafening bang, and a figure emerged from the shadows, a figure that Beverly recognized with a shock of disbelief and desperate hope.

It was Gabriella Newell, her childhood best friend, her features achingly familiar even in the midst of the surreal, twisted nightmare that Beverly’s world had become. Gabby’s hand closed around Beverly’s wrist, yanking her out of the monster’s grasp and into the relative safety of the alleyway beyond.

Together they ran, their feet pounding against the pavement as they navigated the maze-like streets of the city. Beverly’s mind reeled with confusion and terror, but Gabby seemed to know exactly where she was going, leading them through twists and turns until they reached a small, hidden alcove, a place that Beverly recognized with a jolt of bittersweet nostalgia.

It was their childhood hideout, a secret sanctuary where they had spent countless hours playing and dreaming, sharing their hopes and fears with the innocent trust of youth. But now, as they huddled together in the shadows, Beverly could feel the weight of all the years that had passed, the gulf of time and experience that separated her from the girl she had once been.

Gabby turned to her, her eyes wide with concern and confusion. “Bev, what’s going on?” she asked, her voice trembling slightly. “What was that thing chasing you?”

Beverly shook her head, her tentacles writhing with fear and uncertainty. “I don’t know,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the pounding of her own heart. “Something’s after me, Gabby, something that wants my secrets. But I don’t know what they are, or why they want them.”

Gabby opened her mouth to reply, but before she could speak, a sound echoed through the alleyway, a sound that made Beverly’s blood run cold with terror. It was the monster, its roars and footsteps growing louder and closer with every passing second.

Gabby’s hand tightened around Beverly’s, and without a word, they were running again, their breath coming in ragged gasps as they fled through the twisting, nightmarish streets. But as they emerged onto a familiar thoroughfare, Beverly felt a sudden, sickening jolt of recognition, a memory that she had tried so hard to bury and forget.

She pulled her hand free from Gabby’s grasp, her tentacles quivering with a mixture of fear and desperate warning. “Gabby, stop!” she cried out, her voice raw and anguished. “Don’t go into the street!”

But it was too late. Gabby, still running ahead, turned back to look at Beverly with a confused, frightened expression. And in that moment, a car came speeding around the corner, its headlights cutting through the darkness like the eyes of a predator.

Beverly watched in horror as the vehicle slammed into Gabby’s body, sending her flying through the air like a rag doll. She raced to her friend’s side, her tentacles cradling Gabby’s broken, bleeding form as she fought back the tears that threatened to overwhelm her.

“Bev,” Gabby whispered, her voice a thin, thready rasp. “You have to tell me your secrets. You have to let me in.”

But even as she spoke, Beverly watched in horror as Gabby’s features began to shift and warp, her human form melting away to reveal a twisted, amorphous creature that pulsed with a dark, malevolent energy.

Beverly screamed, her mind reeling with the realization that even her most cherished memories, even the people she had loved and trusted the most, were nothing more than illusions, twisted manifestations of the alien presence that had invaded her mind.

She scrambled backward, her tentacles slipping on the blood-slick pavement, as the creature that had once been her best friend rose up before her, its eyes glittering with a hunger that made Beverly’s skin crawl with revulsion.

“You can’t escape me, Beverly,” it hissed, its voice a sibilant whisper that seemed to slither into the very depths of her soul. “I am a part of you now, a part of everything you are and everything you will ever be.”

And as the creature lunged forward, its jaws gaping wide to devour her whole, Beverly could only let out a broken, anguished wail of despair, her sanity shattering like glass in the face of the relentless, unyielding horror that had consumed her life.

She was lost, trapped in a never-ending nightmare from which there could be no escape, no refuge, no sanctuary. And as the darkness closed in around her, as the twisted, malevolent forces that had invaded her mind tightened their grip on her fragmented psyche, Beverly knew that she was doomed, that the only thing that awaited her was an eternity of madness and despair.

Not. The. End.

The Orange Man (Episode 5: “Fruit Friends and the Line of Time!”)

By way of explanation: I am easily bored. This usually leads to me getting into trouble in real life. In my writing, however, I can explore avenues of storytelling and the only fallout from that is the eye-rolling exhaustion experienced by my readership (there’s so few of you that I’m not overly bothered by that). This current experiment is based on a simple story: a man on a breadline makes a daily habit of handing one particular woman his orange. The goal is to see how weird I can make the retelling of the story each week. Simple, right?


🎵 [Theme Song begins: cheerful, glitchy MIDI tune with background children’s choir slightly out of sync]
🎶 “When the world gets strange and starts to peel,
Find a fruit that doesn’t feel real!
Line up, stand still, it’s time to receive,
From Mr. Orange and what he believes!” 🎶


Scene opens on a colorless set that looks like a daycare designed by someone who doesn’t understand children. The breadline is made of oversized plush figures stitched together by red thread. They moan softly when the camera pans over them.

🎙️ NARRATOR (male, cheerful, British, disintegrating):
“Today on Fruit Friends and the Line of Time, we’re going to learn about Sharing! And about how Mr. Orange Man always gives his special fruit to Miss Hollow—even though she never, ever asks!”

[CUE LAUGH TRACK: metallic, warbled]


Cut to Mr. Orange Man.
His costume is a full-body foam suit. His smile is painted on. The paint drips slightly with every cut. His eyes are realistic, human, and blinking. His arms are tubes. He wiggles one, delighted.

MR. ORANGE MAN (voice dubbed, childish):
“Helloooooo fruitlings! I’ve got a warm little orb for Miss Hollow today! Can you say recurring transference?”

[The word appears on screen. It’s misspelled. It rearranges itself backwards. Then vanishes.]


MISS HOLLOW sits at the end of the line. She is a mannequin with eyes drawn on her palms. Her mouth does not move, but sometimes her hair twitches in anticipation. The plush figures whisper.

MR. ORANGE MAN (to camera):
“It’s very important to always give, even if you don’t know why! Sometimes the fruit inside you isn’t just for you—it’s for the Orchard That Watches!”

[Studio audience cheers: “The Orchard! The Orchard!”]


Suddenly, static. The footage skips. The screen warps. We see a frame—only for a second—of a child with their mouth stitched shut, holding an orange the size of their head.


🎵 [Musical Interlude: “Let’s Peel Together!”]
🎶 “Peel it from your shoulder blade,
Grow a gift you never made,
Give it to the one in need,
Then forget what grew the seed!” 🎶


The cartoon portion begins.
In crude, flickering animation, Mr. Orange Man peels himself open like a nesting doll. Each layer is more human. More trembling. Until there’s nothing left but an eye, rolling down the breadline.

It lands in Miss Hollow’s palm.

She places it in her mouth.

She becomes the line.


🎙️ NARRATOR:
“And that’s how we learn that everyone gets a turn to be the bearer, the bearer, the bearer! Sharing isn’t just caring—it’s propagation!

[The screen bleeds white. A voice in reverse whispers:]
“To accept the orange is to renounce the self.”


FINAL SCENE: The screen fades to black except for a tiny pulsing orange dot.
It blinks in Morse code:

Next time… YOU give.


To. Be. Transmogrified.

Bonus: The “Fruit Friends and the Line of Time” Theme Song + Lyrics

(Verse 1)
When the world gets strange and starts to peel,
Find a fruit that doesn’t feel real!
Line up, stand still, it’s time to receive,
From someone who gives what they can’t believe!

(Chorus)
Peel it, feel it, don’t you squeal it!
Warm and weird—go on, conceal it!
Fruit from skin, skin from fruit,
Hold it tight and never refute!

(Bridge – whispered under chorus)
[They’re always watching. The orchard knows.]


🎶 Interlude – “Let’s Peel Together!”

[Cheerful music with undertones of reversed laughter, children giggle]

(Verse)
Peel it from your shoulder blade,
Grow a gift you never made,
Give it to the one in need,
Then forget what grew the seed!

(Chorus)
Let’s peel together, one by one,
Under the glitching plastic sun!
Juice like light, and light like lies,
Share your orange before time dies.

[End with ascending chime arpeggio and a child whispering: “It’s your turn now.”]

All The World Will Be Your Enemy 36: The Twisted Mirror

Beverly found herself in a familiar memory, a snapshot of her life as a preteen. She was in her family home, the warm, comforting scent of her mother’s cooking wafting from the kitchen. But despite the familiarity of her surroundings, something felt deeply, fundamentally wrong.

As she looked down at her own body, Beverly realized with a sickening lurch that she was still an octopod, her soft, translucent form a jarring contrast to the human features of her parents. They moved around her as if nothing was amiss, their smiles and laughter a surreal, disorienting backdrop to the twisted reality that Beverly found herself in.

But it was the presence of her sister that truly sent a chill down Beverly’s spine. She had never had a sister, let alone a twin, and yet there she was, a shifting, amorphous figure that seemed to flicker and change with every passing moment.

“Come on, Bev,” her sister said, her voice a sickly sweet coo that made Beverly’s skin crawl. “Let’s play our special game, the one where we share all our secrets.”

Beverly recoiled, her tentacles writhing in revulsion. She could feel her sister’s presence in her mind, could sense the insidious tendrils of her twin telepathy burrowing into the deepest recesses of her consciousness.

“No,” Beverly whimpered, her voice a thin, pitiful sound that seemed to be swallowed up by the oppressive atmosphere of the room. “I don’t want to play. I don’t have any secrets to share.”

But her sister only laughed, a harsh, grating sound that sent shivers of fear and disgust down Beverly’s spine. “Oh, but you do have secrets, don’t you, Bev?” she hissed, her form shifting and warping into a grotesque, nightmarish parody of a human being. “Secrets that you’ve buried so deep, even you have forgotten them.”

Beverly shook her head frantically, trying to block out the insidious whispers that echoed through her mind. She could feel her sister’s presence growing stronger, could sense the dark, malevolent energy that pulsed and thrummed beneath her shifting, amorphous form.

And then, with a sudden, sickening lurch, Beverly found herself face to face with the imaginary monster from her childhood nightmares, the twisted, grotesque creature that had haunted her dreams and tormented her waking hours.

It loomed over her, its black, soulless eyes boring into her own, its gaping maw dripping with a thick, putrid slime. Beverly screamed, a raw, primal sound of terror and despair, but the monster only laughed, its voice a grating, metallic screech that made her skin crawl.

“You can’t hide from me, Beverly,” it rasped, its hot, fetid breath washing over her like a toxic wave. “I know everything about you, every dark and twisted secret that you’ve tried so hard to keep hidden.”

Beverly thrashed and struggled, her tentacles flailing wildly as she tried to break free from the monster’s grip. But it was no use. She could feel herself being dragged down, down into the yawning abyss of her own shattered psyche, into a darkness so profound and all-consuming that she knew she would never find her way back out again.

As the memory began to fade, as the twisted, nightmarish figures of her sister and the imaginary monster blurred and dissolved into the swirling vortex of her fractured mind, Beverly could only let out a broken, anguished sob, her sanity crumbling like a house of cards in the face of the relentless, unyielding horror that now consumed her every waking moment.

She was lost, trapped in a never-ending cycle of terror and madness, her mind and soul shattered beyond all hope of repair. And as she felt herself slipping away, her very identity unraveling like a threadbare tapestry, Beverly knew that there was no escape, no chance of salvation or redemption.

For she was a prisoner of her own nightmares, a slave to the twisted, malevolent forces that had invaded her mind and shattered her sense of self. And as she descended deeper into the abyss of her own fractured psyche, Beverly could only wonder what fresh horrors awaited her, what new and terrible memories would be dredged up from the darkest recesses of her subconscious to torment her anew.

There was no hope, no light at the end of the tunnel, only an endless, all-consuming darkness that threatened to swallow her whole. And as Beverly surrendered herself to the madness, she knew that she would never be free, that the nightmare that had become her existence would never end, not even in death.

Not. The. End.

THE ORANGE MAN 4.0: THE GOSPEL OF THE PEEL

By way of explanation: I am easily bored. This usually leads to me getting into trouble in real life. In my writing, however, I can explore avenues of storytelling and the only fallout from that is the eye-rolling exhaustion experienced by my readership (there’s so few of you that I’m not overly bothered by that). This current experiment is based on a simple story: a man on a breadline makes a daily habit of handing one particular woman his orange. The goal is to see how weird I can make the retelling of the story each week. Simple, right?

(Discovered in the ruins of the city’s mouth. Inkless. Written in reverse pressure on static. The text reads as follows…)


I. ON THE LINE

Line is not queue.
Line is vein.
Vein is conduit.
You stand not to eat.
You stand to be sorted.
Sorted by presence, sorted by glitch.
Sorted by HIM.

He does not arrive.
He is always-already.
His shape is a suggestion—
Sometimes a man,
Sometimes a series of coat-hooks learning sorrow.
Age: Δ.
Smell: Salt, rust, pulp.


II. ON THE GIFT

He gives.
Not out of mercy.
Not out of motive.
He must give, because the giving is what keeps the recursion folded.

The gift is not an orange.
It is a wound in fruit-shape.
A loop of forgotten sunlight.
A punchline left behind by extinct gods.

He peels it from his skin.
From behind his ear.
From the meat beneath thought.

It hisses when born.
Warm. Heavy. Singing.


III. ON THE RECEIVER

The She does not speak.
The She does not consume.
The She becomes.

Some say she is many.
Others say she is one, refracted.
Some call her “Host.”
Some call her “Egg.”
The text names her:

RECEPTΩR

She accepts. Always.
The orange passes.
So does the burden.


IV. ON THE SEVENTY-FOURTH

The 74th cycle is collapse.
The line buckles.
The man is an absence that howls inward.
The orange is a lie again.
Cold. Dull. Regulatory.

She holds it like betrayal.

She carries them. One. Two. Seven.
They fester in her satchel.
They breed.
Merge. Molt. Moan.
Form a new being:

THE FRUIT THAT BEATS


V. ON THE ORCHARD

She is shown. Not dreams.
Not hallucination.
Instruction.

Step 1: Find flesh.
Step 2: Dig into time.
Step 3: Plant the wound.
Step 4: Wait for the nerve-trees to flower.

The Orchard is pre-language.
Its soil remembers your ancestors.
Its Gardener is [REDACTED].

He trims probability with shears of glass.
His face is composed of every orange ever not eaten.


VI. ON THE NEW FUNCTION

The She is no longer She.
She is Seedling.
Fruit-bearer.
Actuator of the Peel.

She returns.

Finds a boy made of Maybe.

Reaches into her interface.
Extracts a peel-loop.

It grows in her hand.
It is offered.

The boy accepts.
The orange takes root.

He does not say thank you.
She does not wait for one.


VII. ON YOU

You are reading this.
So the infection has already begun.
Check your pocket.
Something warm waits.


End of fragment. Additional pages corrupted by light.

To. Be. Transmogrified.

All The World Will Be Your Enemy 35: School Nightmares

Beverly’s mind was a labyrinth of fragmented memories, each one a jagged shard of her shattered psyche. As she wandered through the twisted corridors of her own fractured consciousness, she found herself suddenly thrust into another vivid, terrifying recollection, a moment from her childhood that she had long since tried to bury and forget.

She was in grade school, her small, octopod body trembling as she was pinned against the cold metal of the lockers. The faces of her tormentors loomed above her, their features constantly shifting and warping, like reflections in a cracked and distorted mirror.

“Tell us your secrets, freak,” one of them hissed, its voice a guttural, inhuman growl. “What are you hiding in that twisted little mind of yours?”

Beverly tried to speak, tried to cry out for help, but her words were trapped in her throat, suffocated by the overwhelming fear that gripped her heart. She could feel the weight of their alien gazes upon her, could sense the malevolent hunger that lurked behind their ever-changing eyes.

“I…I don’t have any secrets,” she stammered, her voice a thin, pitiful whimper. “Please, just let me go.”

But the bullies only laughed, their mocking cackles echoing through the empty hallways of the school. They pressed in closer, their forms blurring and merging into a single, monstrous entity, a creature born from the darkest depths of Beverly’s nightmares.

“Oh, but you do have secrets, don’t you?” the creature purred, its voice a sibilant whisper that seemed to slither into Beverly’s very soul. “Secrets that you’ve buried so deep, even you have forgotten them.”

Beverly shook her head frantically, her tentacles writhing in terror. She could feel the creature’s presence invading her mind, could sense its icy tendrils burrowing into the very core of her being, seeking out the hidden truths that lay buried there.

And then, with a sudden, sickening lurch, Beverly found herself face to face with the imaginary monster from her childhood nightmares, the grotesque, twisted creature that had haunted her dreams and tormented her waking hours.

Its eyes were black, soulless pits that seemed to swallow up all light and hope, and its gaping maw was lined with razor-sharp teeth that dripped with a viscous, putrid slime. It loomed over her, its massive, misshapen body blocking out the flickering fluorescent lights of the hallway.

“You can’t hide from me, Beverly,” the monster rasped, its voice a grating, metallic screech that made Beverly’s skin crawl. “I know everything about you, every dark and twisted secret that you’ve tried so hard to keep hidden.”

Beverly screamed then, a raw, primal sound that tore from her throat like a wounded animal. She thrashed and struggled against the grip of her tormentors, her mind a whirlwind of terror and desperation.

But it was no use. The monster’s grip on her was unbreakable, its strength far beyond anything that Beverly could hope to match. She could feel herself being dragged down, down into the yawning abyss of her own shattered psyche, into a darkness so profound and all-consuming that she knew she would never find her way back out again.

As the memory began to fade, as the twisted, nightmarish figures of her tormentors and the imaginary monster blurred and dissolved into the swirling vortex of her fractured mind, Beverly could only let out a broken, anguished sob, her sanity crumbling like a house of cards in the face of the relentless, unyielding horror that now consumed her every waking moment.

She was lost, trapped in a never-ending cycle of terror and madness, her mind and soul shattered beyond all hope of repair. And as she felt herself slipping away, her very identity unraveling like a threadbare tapestry, Beverly knew that there was no escape, no chance of salvation or redemption.

For she was a prisoner of her own nightmares, a slave to the twisted, malevolent forces that had invaded her mind and shattered her sense of self. And as she descended deeper into the abyss of her own fractured psyche, Beverly could only wonder what fresh horrors awaited her, what new and terrible memories would be dredged up from the darkest recesses of her subconscious to torment her anew.

There was no hope, no light at the end of the tunnel, only an endless, all-consuming darkness that threatened to swallow her whole. And as Beverly surrendered herself to the madness, she knew that she would never be free, that the nightmare that had become her existence would never end, not even in death.

Not. The. End.