An Explanation

To: Me. From: Me

Hello.

I am sure you already know who I am by now. There is a… reputation around our company that has not gone unseen.

If you do not know who I am, I will not bother to explain. Just look out the window. In those two seconds, an entire world has developed around my name: Ashton Clark. No smoke and mirrors here like the other guys. It is all out there.

What you are reading here is not an apology or a response or anything of the sort. It is an explanation. Any apology I could give would never be enough to compensate for what I did. Your families, friends, and colleagues… I can do nothing to make it up to them.

There is nothing I can say to accurately portray what is happening, as I am not a scientist. The ones that could have explained it are all gone now. I am going to try my best to capture it for all of you reading this.

To begin, we must establish some background information and some of the brave men and women who assisted us. Contrary to the delusions advertised by contemporary society, there are still reliable prophets today. The Nostradamuses and Siddharthas of today never fizzled because of God’s insistence on giving us autonomy. Truthfully, we never had autonomy. No, the new prophets were employed. Employed by companies like ours. We had access to their visions and thoughts, and in return, they would help us predict the risings and inevitable collapses of governments and companies. This is common practice in our world, the business world. A member of your family may have had visions, and you would never know. If they were to tell, they would be dealt with in time.

For reasons of personal respect and morality, I will not give any information relating to our “prophet,” other than what is immediately relevant to the situation at hand. They will not be listed among the names I am about to provide, nor will any relation to other employees be established outside the immediate situation at hand. I respect them enough to recognize them now.

As for the others involved, here are their first names. May they be remembered not as harbringers of evil, but as brave seekers of truth in a world of lies.

Mary

Jeremiah

Simon

Patricia

Pauline

John

And Roberto

These were not just scientists. They were geniuses, even if they were taken away.

On April Third, three years ago today, our prophet reported from the ISS that there was to be a partial lunar eclipse on that day, turning the sky a blood red. This was of mild interest, the only abnormality here was the suddenness of its arrival, but all of the calculations lined up on further inspection. We thought it must have just gone over our heads.

We went about that night as normal. The abnormalities only occurred when Pauline reported that, upon waking up late at night to use the restroom, she looked in the mirror and saw my face. We responded according to company policy and gave her 2 weeks PTO to see a psychiatrist, and to come back when the doctor had a word. We never heard back from her.

A month later, Jeremiah reported the same thing. He came home from work after a 72-hour shift and saw a man matching my description staring from the window. Long hair, patchy beard, frail and thin, it was me. Naturally, we did not want to lose our most valuable employee. With his consent, we kept him under supervision for 3 weeks and gave him bi-daily doses of anti-psychotics, making sure he did not have schizophrenia. None of the drugs had any effect, and the day we released him, he committed suicide.

The night Jeremiah took his life, I personally called the prophet. She was still in the ISS, currently floating over China. I told her about everything. Pauline's disappearance and Jeremiah’s suicide. She was confused, insisting I was being erratic. She told me I had already called her 3 days ago, rambling about the same thing. I had no clue what she was talking about. I hadn't spoken to her since the blood moon. When I tried to probe her more, she could only muster up this vague poem. It has been ingrained in my mind since it was spoken to me.

The world is my throat.

Sing in the bleeding temple.

My lungs are now yours.

Those words follow me every step I take. Singing to me like an unclaimed fountain. Some holy grail. But that is off topic. This is already getting too long. By the time I’m done, this will be the last fragment of the old world left.

Things went back to relative normality for the next year. Everybody was acting normal. Everybody was safe. That was until Patricia attacked Simon. One night in the office, the cameras briefly flashed to her strangling Simon and digging into his stomach. I personally stepped in to interfere and deal with Patricia. I took her to the hallway, quietly informing our prophet up above to call the police as med staff rushed him upstairs to receive proper treatment. She was screaming and howling to get away, but all it took was the press of a button to shut us into the room. I demanded she inform me why she did that, and she couldn’t say. Her voice was croaky and her words incoherent. She tried to tell me what she was saying, but couldn’t. All she could do was point to the door. I lifted the barriers and held her in my arms. We walked to her desk, and she pushed me to Simon's desk instead. There was a picture, slid just underneath his keyboard. It was a painting of Napoleon, with my face and body elegantly in the great emperor's place. Even the horse was made to seem taller to reflect my own height. Like Napoleon was always me. When Patricia was finally able to get her words out, her voice sounded exactly like my own.

“That.”

Patricia and I sat together in silence, waiting for the police to come, but they never did.

I wish I could say that was the end of it, but it wasn’t. In fact, it only sped up. Luckily, it did not spread to the outside world. That meant we could contain it. We kept the remaining employees separated in distinct offices and never let them leave, creating elaborate sets of their former homes to prevent insanity. That did not stop insanity, though. They were all like me, though. Every frame became thin, and all of my employees grew their hair out. It was like a private reality, desperate to be like me. Any time I walked inside to check on them, they kept their heads on their desk, terrified of my eyes. We had John and Roberto analyze their blood to verify any biological change. Both of them had AB+ blood, the same as mine. Roberto came to me that same night and gave me $100 as a thank you note. I don’t think I can use this, though, I’m not George Washington.

Mary was the next to go. She was furious that she could not look like me, even when her body changed, and her body grew to be like mine, her face always struggled to capture mine. She was only happy when she had a piece of paper stapled to her face, desperate to have mine. She behaved like this every day until the building ran out of paper. She never went to work then, always staying in her little hut. She cried every night then, painting herself over to look like me. One day, when I came in, she lunged at me with a box cutter. Mary put it to my hairline and whispered nonsense in my ear, but I quickly shot her and helped myself up.

It was like this until last week. The day the ISS called. Our prophet had killed herself. She left thousands of documents behind, documents that were quickly stolen from my database by an unknown figure. The following night, April 1st, I was in my limo, cruising the streets of Singapore, and sirens howled. Cars, ambulances, and even helicopters are rushing in the same direction. As soon as I turned around, my phone began to vibrate. I picked it up, and I whispered those words to myself.

Our lungs are now yours.

That day, I became the prime minister, the emperor of Rome, and now I am you. Or going to be you, or you will be me. Truthfully, I cant explain it. This is just my best attempt at explaining this. I tried to get in contact with the prophet, but she never responded. I just hope I know that I tried to stop this, but I know it’s a ruse. I am you. The world is me. I am writing this to myself, in hopes that I can understand myself, and I can’t. I don’t know what the blood moon or Ashton (our prophet) had to do with anything, just that they correlate somehow, and I will never know how, as every scientist or philosopher or prophet capable of figuring it out is now me, and therefore limited by my scientific ignorance.

I only wonder, if I end it all, will they? There is no way to find out. Everything will end no matter what. Even the trees are beginning to look like Ashton Clark.

STOP STOP STOP STOP PLEASE PLEASE STOP MEEEEEEEEHGHFHGHDHDHFHHHDHHDHUCBSOBRBEgpeb-[‘’[;;;..----====--=_=+$%@&*()_///………………………………………………………………..………………………………………………………………….……………………

Nihil.