Journal:JustAnotherConsumer/2009-06-16

I don't think I'll ever get used to dying. At least I hope not.

That's the slimmest comfort, here in Malton - hardly anyone stays dead forever here.

With any luck, those people that died in Ephrem are alive again.

Or maybe they're zombies. Like the ones my friends blast and chop up every day.

Anyway. Dying screws with your head.

I asked one of NT guys about it, and he mumbled something about necrosis of the hippocampus and distorted associator neurons, then started grumbling about how scalpels he'd lost because test subjects tended to wander off, even with their skulls wide open...

Everything from right before I first died up to Sharline sticking the needle in my neck (man, I wish I forgot that!) is blurry and jumbled. I guess what the lab tech meant was that death changes how your brain reads and writes memories, which makes it hard for the living to remember life as a zombie and vice versa.

Most people agree with the blurry stuff; the ones who don't tend to change the subject really fast.

I just ran into the guy I saw killed right before my first death - turns out he's a bounty hunter and our killer was some skullfucked Literature professor who gets off on mangling quotes from some German play. He was rambling about his right to run us to destruction, and arrogance before Mother Night, whatever that means.

All I know is those bullet wounds still ache, and a medic told me there's a slug lodged in my shoulder.

The second time was pretty gross - I remember a zombie clawing me in the gut, then feeling all warm on my shoulder, and getting cold quickly after that. I guess the guy bit down on an artery. I felt woozy for a couple days after the revival and my jeans fit kind of weird now, but I'm still amazed that that necro goop patches you up enough to start breathing again, like the world's smartest fix-a-flat.

The last time, though... Brr. A nutter in a straitjacket (great disguise :P) with a knife and a shotgun. Looks like words sliced into his legs and cheeks or at least they're supposed to look like words. Best I could make out was "Choo choos". Just when you think things can't get any weirder...

I saw him slice up the guts of two generators with the knife, then he installed a fresh transmitter in Ephrem a couple days later. What the hell?

I guess he didn't like my "DEFEND EPHREM" jacket, because I ran into him two days later and he emptied a couple of shotguns into me. People kept telling me to go find a flak vest; looks like they were right.

I suppose it's only a matter of time before I die again, but I gotta say, it's pretty silly how much effort some humans put into killing other humans.

Imagine the coyote catching the roadrunner over and over, only to have the little bastard get up and run away again. And not even getting to eat him!

I mean, the zeds make sense. They're hungry. That's about all I remember feeling when I was dead.

But the crazies... I feel kind of bad for them - their worlds are so twisted and chaotic that the most sensible thing they can do is shoot someone who'll shamble around for a couple days, only to get jabbed and patched up.

It took me a while to figure out what was worth doing, so I could sleep a little and not hate being alive, but I got there. I guess some people are really lost in Malton...

--JAC, 2009-06-16, Wyke Hills