S02E09: We Shall All Be Worms

ALEX: Holy shit, Olivia, you weren’t lying. Get em! Kill em, Liv, get that fuckin guy!

NYA: Yes, commence the violence!

ALEX: Did that cat say something?

ORANGE: Whoa, hey, hold on, I’m not like that.

NADIA: No headaches? 

ORANGE: Uh, no.

NADIA: You a cop?

ORANGE: No, no, I…

OLIVIA: *exhausted, maybe panting* Guys. Stop. It’s fine.

ORANGE: Olivia? Is that you? I’m here to help you folks out of here.

OLIVIA: Let me guess: you’re with the Department?

ORANGE: I, uh…yeah. How did you know?

OLIVIA: We can talk about it later. Are you two coming with us to find whatever’s doing this?

ORANGE: Two?

OLIVIA: You and the cat.

ORANGE: Oh, you can see him?

OLIVIA: Yes? Why? Should I not?

ORANGE: Don’t pay him any mind. Are you three okay? I had a run in with that tentacle man earlier and he was one tough customer. You took him out just fine though, Liv. If I may call you Liv. And you two?

OLIVIA: Alex and Nadia, we’ve been stuck out here for a while. That “tough customer” used to be our friend.

ORANGE: Ah, jeez, I’m sorry for your loss. I didn’t know it was changing folks.

NYA: This is the song of the vile serpent. 

ALEX: Holy shit, it does talk. 

OLIVIA: I’m sure you can all hear the song now. We’re close.

ALEX: Kind of sounds like birds. Or shitty violins.

ORANGE: We got no time to waste then. Let’s get out of this place and head back to town.

NADIA: Good luck with that.

ORANGE: Oh?

OLIVIA: I don’t think we can leave until this is over.

ORANGE: Great, then let’s go kill this god damn thing–pardon my french–and go home.

NYA: Yes, YES! Kill, deliver violence unto the serpent!

ALEX: Hell yes, little guy. We’re gonna stomp some worms.

NYARRATOR: Olivia was quiet for most of the hike up the hillside. Orange asked questions, and Alex answered. Olivia’s mind was occupied by something else. It seemed unlikely now that she was in Alex’s memories, which really only left her own. What happens when someone jumps into their own mind? Scarlet might know, but Olivia couldn’t exactly ask her right now. And who exactly was she hearing now?

NADIA: Is it really going to get us back home? Just killing this worm thing?

OLIVIA: I hope so.

NYA: Nya confirms this verily.

ALEX: Gah! Jesus, sorry, I’m still not used to that thing speaking. What are…what are we going to tell Daryll’s parents?

ORANGE: Let me worry about that. I’ll talk to the cops and the parents.

ALEX: Oh. What do you do again?

ORANGE: I work with the state. I’m a bit like a detective. It’ll all make sense to em. It’s what I do.

ALEX: Guess I’ll have to take your word for it. We’d look super sketch if we went to the cops about it.

OLIVIA: Oh my god…that’s it, up ahead. The firewatch tower, and…

NYARRATOR: In the center of the clearing stood the tower. Wrapped around its metal frame was a giant, serpentine body, like a relic of a dead god, a giant finger curled in rigor mortis. Its skin glistened with pearlescent goo, which dripped from its body and formed a puddle beneath the ladder. What approximated its head rested atop the tower’s roof, and from that head came a square of light, and a sound. The birdsong lilted on the breeze around them, and images of the past danced across the black of the sky overhead like a film projector.

ORANGE: Jesus Christ. You weren’t kidding.

NYARRATOR: All along the creature’s body were tiny spines, little hooked barbs and snares. As the group approached, they noticed several dark forms patrolling the tower. Three larks, all muttering and emitting light much like the great worm itself. The creature was singing to its children, planting worms in the heads of birds, preparing for the great writhing of all things. Calling for its horsemen, calling for the end. 

ALEX: So…what now? How do we kill something like that?

NADIA: Fire?

ORANGE: Too dangerous, we’d burn the whole damn forest down.

ALEX: I don’t have like a gun or anything, sooo…

ORANGE: I, uh, I suppose I didn’t have a plan for actually taking it out. I kind of figured you folks might think of something. I’ve just got some scissors and whisky.

ALEX: Dude, give me a sip.

ORANGE: How old are you all, anyway?

ALEX: Come on, you’re really going to worry about that now?

NADIA: Liv, any input here?

NYARRATOR: Olivia had watched the worm’s excretion with bilious interest. 

OLIVIA: I have an idea. A terrible, disgusting, powerful idea. I need you all to distract the Larks so I can get close to the mother worm. 

ALEX: What are you gonna do?

NYARRATOR: The substance ran along the worm’s body in a slick film. It was revolting, but perhaps…

OLIVIA: I’m going to lick the worm. 

NYA: Thy weak body will crumble in its presence.

NYARRATOR: Olivia was already moving past the other three. She was crouched, sneaking along a line of benches near the tower. Nya hopped down from Orange’s shoulder and followed along.

ALEX: *sigh* Fine. I guess we can distract the one on the left and hope it doesn’t crush my skull. You…what can you do again?

ORANGE: Ah, my expertise is not in combat, as such. 

ALEX: Well, you come with us then and I guess we’ll try to snag two of them together. Hey, you big slimy dorks! Over here!

NYARRATOR: Alex’s call caught the attention of the Larks. Nadia closed her eyes, slipped her headphones on, and lowered her head. The Larks left their path along the tower and bounded on all fours at Alex and Nadia. 

Beneath the base of the tower, Olivia hunched, steeling herself for what was to come. If this creature was the same species as the earworms that Green and Sterling talked about, then surely…Olivia grimaced and turned her face away as she reached out for the dark viscous puddle beneath the firewatch tower. Her fingers touched the surface, and she scooped what she could into the palm of her hand. Nya watched in rapt anticipation. She pulled her fist back and looked at the secretion. She took several short breaths and tried to recall her confrontation with Yellow. Tried to remember what Green had said. She snapped her eyes shut and licked the substance off her finger.

Her head swam, and her consciousness blossomed across the forest. She could sense where Alex and Nadia were, sense their fear and resolve, and the malice behind the Larks’ serene expressions. Olivia could see color in the birdsong, all the colors of the rainbow and some beyond, she could taste the dread emanating from Orange. She felt Nya, light as a feather, sticky as tar, clamber onto her arm and run up to her face. Nya put a paw on her forehead, and vanished. 

Olivia’s entire being shifted, and she could feel the power again. The authority. She lifted into the air and closed her eyes. She was Jasmine Control once more.

But when she opened them again, it was all gone. The park, the tower, the worm and her friends. All vanished in the void. She was floating in moonlight, twirling below the twin hanging lanterns. She looked up, and she knew then that these two orbs were not moons. To her surprise, they weren’t eyes, either. They were nearly perfect circles, beaming holy incandescence down like a stage light. And there was a rumble overhead, the deep rhythmic cycling of a machine. There was a signal, birdsong picked up by antenna and magnified by cones and magnets and wires, and the cosmic metal death driver was wailing. At her feet was a small creature, a housecat made of holographic light.

NYA: There it is, Jasmine. The origin of the song, the end of all things. It’s so near. Canst thou hear it?

OLIVIA: Y-yes. I can hear it. It’s almost…beautiful.

NYA: Most deadly things are beautiful: red berries, jeweled snakes, yellow mottled frogs. Now is the time. End it, or we shall all be worms.

OLIVIA: Why…why is it here? What is it trying to do?

NYA: It is leading a ritual among all the lowly things. It is uniting them in a writhing dance to summon the one beyond.

OLIVIA: It’s…calling something. Bringing something here.

NYA: Yes, the gold beyond the stars, the calamitous heavens themselves. It arrives at all times simultaneously, a decade apart. The entity your employers call…Pink Fortune. 

OLIVIA: Wait, Pink? So that means…whatever’s coming, it works for the Department?

NYA: Pink is of the most vile species the universe has yet seen: upper management.

OLIVIA: I…I don’t get it…but now’s not the time to puzzle it out.

NYARRATOR: The darkness around her lifted, and Olivia turned toward her comrades–her friends. Alex and Nadia’s faces contorted–in fear perhaps, surprise certainly–at the sight of Jasmine, somehow not the same person they knew, now floating halfway up the firewatch tower. Currents of vibrant color danced between her fingers. She pointed at the first Lark, and it popped like a balloon, leaving only a watercolor puddle behind. She pointed her palm toward the second Lark and lifted it into the air. She closed her fist, and the Lark compacted in on itself, rolling and shrinking until it disappeared. She prepared to take out the final patrolling creature, but then came the Great Wurm.

*rumbling, wood creaking*

NYARRATOR: It could smell Jasmine’s anger, and its song intensified. It was calling for something beyond the clearing, beyond this place, and it was not going to stop singing without a fight. Its head lifted toward the dual moons resting in the charcoal sky. Its tail moved with shocking speed straight for Jasmine.

*slam, impact as its tail hits Liv*

OLIVIA: *pained sound at the heavy impact*

ALEX: Shit, Liv, hold on!

OLIVIA, straining: No, stay away. I can do this.

ALEX: Don’t be dumb, I can help.

OLIVIA: Please, Alex. Let me stand on my own.

NYARRATOR: Olivia forced herself off the grass and back onto her feet. She walked slowly back toward the Great Wurm.

ALEX: Shit, one of those Cricket things is coming. Can you do your…angel thing?

NADIA: I…I don’t know.

ALEX: Better find out fast, dude.

NADIA: I know, i know!

NYARRATOR: The lark was second away from tearing into Alex with its dripping claws when it stopped dead in its tracks. Something fell from its mouth and coiled on the ground. Black ribbon, a tape of some kind. Standing behind the hulking creature was Orange, their hand on the beast’s shoulder. It stood still, bewildered, as Orange did their grim work.

ORANGE: Ah, the life of an editor. If you’re gonna do something, do it now. I’m not sure how long I can hold it.

ALEX: Uh, Nadia? Any time.

NADIA: Okay. I can do this.

NYARRATOR: Nadia let out a deep breath and focused on her music. A faint gold ring glimmered over her head. She moved toward the Lark, and placed a finger to its forehead. The creature’s eyes grew heavy, and its body went limp. Orange let go, and the massive beast fell face down into the grass.

ORANGE: Holy shit, good work, kid. You lulled that thing right to sleep.

With the larks gone, Olivia could focus her energies on the serpent.

OLIVIA, to herself: If this is my memory, my nightmare we’re in, I’m going to end it on my terms. If I can’t stop you from singing, I’m going to rework your song until your voice cracks. I’m going to curdle your signal. I’m going to untether my mind and send you through a thousand circles of hell. For Alex, for Daryll, and for what they took from me because of you.

NYARRATOR: The worm whipped its tail Jasmine’s direction once more, but this time she was ready. She held up her hand, and streams of color caught the appendage. The worm’s body rippled from end to end, expanded and shrank, and shook the entire tower. Its song shimmered in the air, and it sharpened. Notes inverted, tone and timbre reorchestrated. The sound blanketing the forest was no longer the call of the songbird, but the screech of metal. The writhing beings all around the woods fell to the dirt upon hearing the corrupted song. 

The Great Wurm’s body began melting between the metal bars of the tower. The light from its head flickered and went dark. The Wurm dripped to the ground in large gobs, and its voice fell silent. The halogen bulbs in the night sky retreated with an echoing boom. With nothing more to give, Jasmine collapsed to the grass beneath her. 

ALEX: You’re lucky the worm guts broke your fall. Are you okay? Are you…you? 

OLIVIA: I’m…yeah. I’m alive, you’re alive…that’s all that matters. 

NADIA: The whole “evil” vibe of this place is vanishing.

OLIVIA: Looks like the sun will be up soon.

ALEX: Yeah? Hey, uh, Nadia. Do you…do you wanna, I don’t know, like go watch the sunrise? Like together?

NADIA: Never thought you’d ask. 

***

NADIA: It still hasn’t really hit me, you know? It feels like the sun’s gonna come up, and I’m going to wake up in my bed. Like if I shook my head hard enough it would all disappear. That Daryll…

ALEX: I know, dude. I don’t know what we’re gonna do. Let’s just take it a step at a time.

NADIA: Yeah, I guess. 

*pause*

NADIA: So?

ALEX: So what?

NADIA: Sun’s really nice from up here. All pink and orange.

ALEX: Totally. I’m just happy to see daylight again. I think I can hear birds. Like real birds.

NADIA: I didn’t mind the dark. It was the heat. Well, and the monsters.

ALEX: No shit. It makes me wonder, you know? About stuff. Like if those things are real, is mothman real? Is…is God?

NADIA: I…I don’t know anything anymore. Still a “probably not” from me.

ALEX: I hope Liv’s okay. To be real, she kind of scared me. She didn’t look like herself, but she didn’t look any different. 

NADIA: What the hell are you talking about.

ALEX: Nevermind.

*pause*

ALEX: Hey, Nadia?

NADIA: Yeah?

ALEX: I, uh…god, I gotta say something. I feel like I’m gonna puke. 

NADIA: That’s what you have to say?

ALEX: No, that’s the leadup. 

NADIA: I was gonna say.

ALEX: So, like…you know how some people–you do, probably, and I bet Olivia does too–feel like…I have these feelings sometimes. They bubble up and feel like they’re gonna swallow me. Like I’m drowning. Like everything’s spinning out of control, everything’s wrong, and I can’t do a damn thing about it. I can see it all. All the bullshit systems that line up to screw us over, over and over, and nothing gets better. I can see how it’ll all end, in my head. Storm clouds coming, water’s rising, and no one’s paying attention. No one’s saying anything. Why isn’t anyone saying anything. Like the world sucks so bad it’s maybe not even worth seeing it to the end. Like that.

But when you’re around, it kind of feels worth it. To go on. Like I know that if I can see you again tomorrow, I can make it one more day.

Does that make sense? I’m not–

NADIA: Here, take my hand. 

ALEX: Oh.

NADIA: Scootch closer. And your other hand right here on my hip. No, face me more. Look into my eyes.

ALEX: Wow, they’re so…wow, okay. *heavy breathing* Am I breathing weird? I feel like I’m breathing w–

NADIA: Shut up and kiss me.

ALEX: Oh. Hell yeah.

***

NADIA: It was…a little clumsy, but nice.

OLIVIA: Hm? The sunrise was clumsy? 

ALEX: Dope as fuck.

OLIVIA: It really is nice, though. Well, we ready to get going?

ORANGE: Hold on a sec, let me see something before you go.

NYARRATOR: Orange took the scissors from their coat pocket. They took a swig from the canteen in their other pocket, then approached Alex. They put their hand on her shoulder, and from her mouth came an unspooling of magnetic ribbon: a cassette tape. 

OLIVIA: Hey, what the hell?

ORANGE: Shit, just give me a minute. It’s for the Department.

NYARRATOR: Orange was eliminating their memories of what happened this night, and reforming their experiences here into a more mundane affair. They left the feeling, though. They saw what these kids could do, figured they may come in handy some day, and left with them the uneasy dread that there was something more to this world than what we can see, that there’s something lurking in the shadow of reason. Just in case.

ORANGE: Have…have we met before, Olivia? I’ve seen you on the posters, but…there’s something more. 

OLIVIA: I…I’m afraid to tell you.

NYARRATOR: Orange placed their hand on Olivia’s shoulder.

ORANGE, quietly surprised: I’ve done work on you before. I’ve already blanked you once. And it was a doozy. But I don’t remember you, and I remember everything. What the hell are you, kid?

OLIVIA: Listen, we don’t have much time. I can feel reality pulling on my sleeve. If you’ve uh…blanked me before, can you undo it? Can you give me back what you took from me?

ORANGE: The work’s pretty extensive. Feels like a lot had to be cut. Plus, you’re dangerous, kid.

OLIVIA: I’m with the Department. Name’s Jasmine Control, bureau of Transnatural Resources.

ORANGE: No shit, huh. Awful young for that, but go on.

OLIVIA: This sounds made up, but it’s all a memory. It’s actually ten years after the present moment we’re experiencing here. And I need to remember this–all of it and everything after–or I think my friend is going to die. There are things from before this I don’t remember, too. Blurry moments in my childhood. Please. Just do me this one favor. Leave this one loose end. Let me keep this part of myself.

ORANGE: Let’s say I take this all at face value. If it’s done, I can’t undo it. I can tell you I get the feeling that something else is at play. That neat power of yours…it seems to drain a lot out of you. Variance like that, it tends to have a drawback. The stronger it is, the greater the penalty for using it. And what you just did, well, that was pretty strong.

OLIVIA: Oh…oh god. To save Alex–Scarlet–I…I must have given up so much. So much of myself. So many pieces missing.

ORANGE: I uhh, I hate to tell you, kid, but the ones from before today, the ones that don’t involve your two friends there…those aren’t my work.

OLIVIA: And you have no way to undo the ones you did take?

ORANGE: I-I’m sorry, Miss Liv…without the original tape, I…

NYARRATOR: Orange couldn’t undo the blanking, but perhaps someone else could help.

ORANGE: One more thing. About that talking cat…you know him? 

OLIVIA: Not at all.

ORANGE: Cuz he sort of…jumped into your head.

OLIVIA: Yeah, I noticed.

NYARRATOR: She had even started hearing the incomparable Nya in her head. Yes, perhaps Nya could do it, for a price.

ORANGE: Well, it said it wanted “a way out.” And now I’m thinking, and I’m worrying. I’m worrying about what’s going on in that head of yours. I’m worrying about why I’m here in the first place and why Nya led me right to you. 

OLIVIA: I…I guess this will be a problem for future me.

ORANGE: What will?

NYARRATOR: Orange Splice was launched across the clearing with the last of Jasmine’s strength. They lay still, breathing, but battered.

Jasmine didn’t have much time left in this space. The memories she’d given up for her abilities were gone for good. But she still had a choice to make. She could undo what was done to her by the Blank Commission, but it would require assistance. And the psychic torment she would endure in the process…a decade of compressed time, decompressed at once. It could feel like living those years again, existing in the dreamspace for an entire decade before her return to the here and now. Was she willing to suffer those years in exchange for her memories? To remember her friendships with Alex and Nadia? Would she wait like Nya waited, alone? She would never be the same. And what price did Nya ask? Simple: Nya had been stuck in this place for ten agonizing years, a sliver of cosmic ichor that thought itself into existence, and all it wanted was a door out. There was nothing to fear from Nya, Jasmine had heard it from Hecks herself: we can live with the variance, if we stop trying to contain it.

OLIVIA: I…I’m sick of being in the dark. Do it, Nya. Let’s go home.

*audio from episode 14 plays in reverse, increasing in speed as it fades out*

***

ORANGE: I woke up a tumbleweed rolling across a vast plain. The sun beat down on the cracked earth and dust roiled in my wake. There was no one around, no place around. An infinite horizon of death. Funny concept, infinity. Keeps going and going and going beyond the going. Seems impossible to fully understand. Like a billion dollars, the kind of thing that makes you feel sick if you think on it too long. So of course that’s what I did. I rolled on through the craggy wasteland, imagining something so vast it couldn’t be held within my imagination.

The sun never went down, or up, it just glared at me like a spotlight. Was I meant to do something more? Something beyond all the rolling and tumbling through the sand? If all the world’s a stage, this must have been one boring play. Then came the quake. Vibrations in the dry ground. A distant roar. A dust storm gathering on the horizon.

It swelled into a whirling vortex, and closed in around me. Something in the center. Central. Radius and ulna. Latin. Let justice be done, though the heavens fall. Fallen empire and rotting state. 

The storm was upon me, tossing and spinning me through choked out weeds and dried cacti. Then the dust settled, and something came to a stop beside me. Not another tumbleweed but a tire. Black rubber sizzling like eggs in the pan. White trim, engine humming and intermittently coughing black smoke. Face like a steel shark and tailfins to match. A shining pink cadillac cutting a figure in the shadowless sun. The passenger side door opened, and I felt drawn to enter by mystic gravitational force. The interior was all sleek leather and chrome. Looked like a billion dollars. Makes you feel sick if you think on it too long. I rolled into the seat, the door slammed shut, and the engine growled. The front wheels lifted up toward the sky and there appeared a spiral staircase ascending into the clouds.

Before we could go higher, I awoke once more in a bush in the middle of the woods. The sun had been up for an hour or so by then, and the kids were nowhere to be seen. 

There was a lot of paperwork waiting for me back at the Commission, and a lot of explaining to be done. But for just a moment, I let myself enjoy the small victory. I had helped someone, really helped them, for once. No need to bullshit myself about the greater good. It was just good.

I was alone again in my hatchback rambling south through the buzzing swamps and sweaty hills of deep midwestern summer. I reached for a cigarette, but all I found was the little plastic stick the barista gave me. I rolled down the window, took a deep puff, and blew it out over the highway. I hung my arm out in the breeze and looked through the rearview mirror one last time at Deerland. Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. Maybe there was something worth a damn under all that rot. Or maybe I was just glad to be alive and no longer surrounded by worms. Maybe. Only time will tell, and it’s real shy about giving away its secrets.