A Thousand Truths

Over the containment chamber's intercom, a tone chimed. Arang looked up from his clipboard, listening for whatever announcement may be coming. A voice came through the speaker, cold and robotic. "You have gathered enough energy from this abnormality for one work-shift. Please return to the deployment bay."

"Oh, looks like it's time for me to go, Gran." Arang spoke chipperly, to the old lady across the room from him, who he wasn't sure could even hear him, but tended to still respond anyway. Much to the Corporation's dismay, he'd grown attached to the strange abnormality, listening to her stories like they were coming from the reminiscing mind of his own grandmother. She looked up at him with her dark, sunken eyes, and gave an attempt at a smile. "That's alright, sweetheart. Come back soon, I get so lonely in this little room," she replied, with a hint of weariness in her voice. Old age does that to a person- anomalous or not. Arang happily smiled back. "I'll be sure to check in on you again, don't worry."

Waving goodbye as he left the chamber, he began to walk back to the deployment bay...when he noticed something, or someone, sitting by a door nearby. Gimtteol, it was Gimtteol. He was staring vacantly into space, looking at nothing yet seeming very intent on watching...whatever it was he was seeing. Arang knew what was going on, sort of- Gimtteol got like this sometimes, after rough work-days. He grew absent-minded, zoned-out. He'd stare at seemingly nothing until someone snapped him out of it. But this time, something seemed different. His deep brown eyes, star-shaped markings within their irises, seemed to capture a deep, unsettling force within them. Not quite darkness, but not quite light, either- something surreal, something otherworldly.

There was something there. Arang couldn't see it, but looking into Gimtteol's eyes, he somehow knew.

"Uh...hey, Gim," Arang finally said, trying to break the uncomfortable silence. Gimtteol didn't even blink as his eyes shifted to look at the source of the sound, then he turned to look at Arang, with movements that felt almost too smooth. "Hello," he replied- monotonously. Disturbingly so. Arang shuddered a little. Gim was always a bit creepy when he got like this, but he couldn't shake the fact that something was wrong this time.

"Is there something I can help you with?", Gimtteol continued, raising an eyebrow slightly.
"Uh- n-no, I'm fine, thanks," Arang stuttered, waving a hand in front of him. "I was just...wondering what was up with you. You look like you've got a lot on your mind. Whatcha thinking about?"
Gimtteol responded by looking away, staring towards the ground. His expression changed from blank to...troubled. The silence bore down on Arang, feeling almost crushingly heavy. Seconds ticked by and Arang just wanted to back up and leave Gim alone, this was getting so uncomfortable. But finally, Gimtteol piped up again, after his moment of deep thought.

"...Arang?"
"Yeah?"
"...Do you know why we're still here?"

Arang blinked, baffled by the question. What was that supposed to mean? Was Gimtteol close to breaking? He couldn't even begin to respond before Gim began talking again, seeming to descend into a disturbing ramble.

"That book in the chamber behind me...wrought with flesh, written in blood. It...has taught me so much. I have learned a thousand truths, Arang. I have learned the nature of the abnormalities, the horrors of life under the Corporation, and I have learned why we're still here."
"...Go on." Arang stared, rooted to the spot, frightened yet fascinated.
"Have you ever thought about how things seem to happen so perfectly in this facility? Almost...too perfectly?" Gimtteol looked up at Arang, tilting his head quizzically.
"What'dya mean?"
"I mean how whenever an abnormality breaches containment, or we disturb its mental state somehow, heck, any situation where we may as well be dead- we come out of it, completely unscathed. Luck seems to favor us, and it's almost as if the flow of reality...rewrites itself, so we can stay alive."

Arang had no good response to what seemed like the ramblings of a madman. Gim really was close to snapping, as far as he could tell. He'd never touched that book- the Prophecy of the Skin, the higher-ups called it. They said it could cause "mental disturbances", and had the potential to immediately kill employees who weren't careful with it. And it looked nasty! He marveled at Gimtteol's ability to even go near it without being freaked out by it, and now he found himself wondering just how badly the book had screwed him up. He listened, as Gimtteol locked starry eyes with him.

"I learned why, Arang. I was taught why. There's a being, a higher power, watching over us, over our facility. It has the power to direct our manager, and by extension, direct us, around the facility. Everything that we do, everything we're assigned to, it's the will of this...thing. You- you know what I said earlier about fate rewriting itself? You and I, we're its favorites. It loves us. And it would do anything it can, even rewinding time itself, just to keep us alive."

Gimtteol looked away, turning back to whatever he was looking at before.

"We've suffered a thousand deaths in other times, Arang. We're still here because something up there, on another plane of reality, loves us. Maybe it's watching us right now, as I speak."

And he stared into nothingness.
Arang stared at him, silently. Wondering about what the hell any of what he just said meant.
Why he felt so...oddly comforted by the knowledge he'd just been given.

If there really was something up there, something that cared so much about him that it would rewrite reality just to keep him alive...something about that knowledge, it was unsettling, otherworldly, like something he was never meant to know. Yet somehow it filled him with a strange warmth, a sense of comfort. Of love. He wondered many things in that moment- if Gimtteol was right, if the book was just driving him insane, if he was going to go insane now because of what he'd just heard...and he shook his head, thinking it would probably just be best to push the thoughts out of his mind. He shrugged, turned, and walked down the hallway, to go chat with Orga and Lamarcus- actually sane people.

But he never could get the thought out of his mind, it hung over him like a shroud. What if Gim was right? That there really was something out there, observing from another dimension, keeping him alive in situations where he damn well should have died?

What if it was watching, right now?