Tome Level Release Schedule:
* Alterations by Developers December 2nd
He moves through the death and decay of the void. He doesn't remember his name. Everything's a blur. He feels pain in his stomach. In his arms. In his veins. He needs… he needs to find one of those… flowers… the nectar… the sweet serum that gives… strength. Strength for what? He remembers… the killers… experimenting on them. Why? Why was he experimenting on them? He doesn't… remember. He caused a lot of suffering, but he doesn't feel remorse. He doesn't even know if he should feel remorse. He doesn't feel anything but an ache in the pit of his stomach for power.
He has flashes of The Doctor. His screams. His agony. Turning the tables on him. Experimenting on him like he had done with so many others. Where? Not here. Somewhere else. Another world. All of these… these… survivors… marooned from other… worlds... How does he know this? He doesn't remember… He remembers the experiments. What was he trying to understand? The nectar? The serum? The right dose? The right dose… to use without hurting himself. Too late.
He feels the hunger. Not for food or drink. Not for talk or fun. For a flower. A single flower. For serum. He knows The Entity is watching him. He knows it. Feels it inside his bones. He doesn't want to be snatched for another trial. To suffer or cause suffering. And to what end? The great horrible mystery of it all. He wants to understand this place. He does. But he senses that to know… to really know would drive him… mad. Madness. That's what this place is. The embodiment of madness. He doesn't want to be pulled into another trial. He wants to return home. He must return home. That's why he was studying the serum. It gave him insight. Insight to what? He doesn't remember.
Home… he doesn't even remember where home is. He only remembers The Void. Hundreds maybe thousands of discarded survivors. Not dead. Not alive. Something else. Alive but dead inside. Burnt. Emotionless. Useless to The Entity. He remembers… he remembers rising from The Void, finding… a flower... Had this flower been his salvation? Had the flower been his way out? He falls to his knees and shouts at the abyss and the abyss answers with… silence. The silence is so deafening it hurts. He buckles over. Climbs to his knees. He needs… serum…
He's lost. He doesn't know where he is. He sees things like tentacles reaching out for him from the fog and he knows they're not real. None of it is. He's losing his mind if he hasn't lost it already. His eyes play tricks on him. He sees giant, nameless creatures looming over him. Doesn't matter. They're not real. None of it is. His hunger confuses him. Oppresses him. He'd do anything for that feeling again. Anything. Even… return to the trials. He would. He'd rip survivors and killers apart limb from limb for that feeling again. He begins to mumble words. A promise… one flower… one flower… and I will do anything…
Claudette is seven years old and feels alone. Very alone. Yes, her parents love her. Yes, they want the world for her. But the world doesn't want her. Or, at least, that's what Claudette believes. She just wants to fit in. Fit in at school. Fit in with her cousins. Fit in with her teammates on the soccer pitch. But fitting in isn't as simple as being like others. She's different and she knows it.
She feels slow. Unresponsive. Not quick enough to understand her teacher or keep up with her class. The librarian calls her ‘addle minded.' When she talks, she stutters. Sometimes she loses her breath and has trouble recognizing when she's talking too loudly. But most of all her teacher embarrasses her. Says she's in the clouds. Always in the clouds. Get out of the clouds, Claudette! But she can't help it. She's exploring massive gardens and colorful bugs on strange new worlds.
Claudette feels things more than others. Much more. Like the shame of not being invited to any birthday parties. Not one party. Every day her parents ask her who she played with at lunch and every day she lowers her chin and tells them she doesn't want to talk.
Her parents ask her teacher and her teacher tells them she likes to play alone. Not so much play. More like collect and observe things. Flowers. Weeds. Beetles. Worms. Rocks. Some kids are just loners. Every day her parents ask her about her friends and every day the shame returns. They want her to have friends. More than that they want a list of names for her birthday. But she doesn't have a list of names. She doesn't even have one name.
Claudette observes a beetle while her classmates chase one another around the playground. She wants to play but no one wants to be around her. She doesn't want to think about it. Thinking about it hurts. Thinking about it reminds her she will disappoint her mother again.
Her mother just wants her to have a friend. But making a friend isn't easy. Not for Claudette. And she wishes more than anything that it was as easy for her as it was for others. She wishes she had a friend to make her parents worry less. Maybe they would even be proud. Maybe she should give up her passion for bugs and flowers. Maybe that would help. Maybe then she would be like other kids. But the need to explore and collect is strong. It is not beyond her. It is her.
Claudette loves to collect things and she knows this is why many call her weird. Her father tells her she's perfect the way she is. He tells her a man named Darwin used to collect bugs and plants, too. He had a big imagination like her. He often mused on ideas and theories and boy did he come up with a whopper of a theory! He explains the theory, and she understands. Her father has a way of taking complicated ideas and making them easy to understand. Darwin. Claudette likes the name. She smiles. Stares at her favorite blue and green beetle and names him… Darwin…
Claudette's mom is crying. She's upset because Claudette is having trouble in school. Her grades are lower than they've ever been. She doesn't understand what she's doing wrong as a parent. Her dad says she's doing nothing wrong. He says Claudette's wired differently and that's okay. Her mom doesn't want her to collect plants and bugs anymore. Her dad says that's the best part of her and he doesn't need a child who fits some bell-curve. More than this he defends her. He tells her mother that the greatest treasures gifted to the world were from those who didn't conform. Who weren't normal. Who didn't fit some outdated bell-curve. Tolstoy. Tesla. Einstein. Shakespeare. Her mother doesn't care. A sudden cry escapes her lips. I don't want her to repeat the year.
Claudette hides under the covers pretending to be asleep. Pretending she can't hear the yelling. Her mother wants her to get special help, but her father doesn't want to alienate her. He's right. Claudette doesn't want other kids to know she needs special help. They'll laugh at her. She'll figure things out. She promises she will. Her new substitute teacher Mrs. Cahil is helping her. A lot more than the other teacher who always said she was in the clouds. Her father says stress is the worst thing for a child's developing brain. Leave her be! Let her grow at her own pace! Stress shrinks the brain. Destroys confidence. Kills creativity. He doesn't want her studying at lunchtime. Lunchtime is for real growth. Authentic growth. Growth unhindered by the pressure of tests and the fear of making mistakes.
Claudette's mother is happy because her grades are improving. A single teacher can make a difference. Can make all the difference. Especially this teacher. Mrs. Cahil. Other kids call her strange and weird. But Mrs. Cahil isn't weird. She just gets it. She understands because she had a tough time learning when she was a student. This is why she makes an extra effort to help Claudette. To help her understand what she is explaining in class without alienating her.
Claudette is happy because her new teacher is helping her. Really helping her. She's learning new things every day. More than facts and vocabulary she's learning how to learn. Or rather, she's learning how she learns and that is the key. But her teacher is doing something else. Her teacher is talking to her. She's talking to her about her ‘issue' and how her ‘issue' is really a blessing in disguise if she can just learn how to succeed in a system that favors one type of ‘smart' at the expense of all the others. A system that frowns on taking chances or making mistakes when making mistakes and taking chances is what is needed for learning. For true learning. Her teacher tells her that she has passion and passion is everything.
Claudette knows she's not like other kids and she doesn't have to be. Things like ‘bell curves' and ‘ideal student' don't apply to her and that's okay. The ideal mold is a prison for those wired differently and her teacher has set her free. Her grades are getting better and a test is coming. She writes, visualizes, and imagines everything she needs to remember and somehow this works. The right teacher at the right time can make all the difference.
Her parents are proud. Very proud. But still her mother wishes she had friends. Still her mother wishes she liked what other girls liked. Her parents argue in another room about what to get for her birthday. Her mother wants to buy a new doll. Her father thinks she'd like something more related to bugs, plants and bacteria. The suggestion upsets her mother. He father defends her. See her for who she is and not who you want her to be!
Her mother goes silent. She suddenly releases a cry and says she doesn't want her to be bullied like she was bullied throughout school. Claudette's eyes go wide. For the first time in her life… she realizes… her mother's wired differently, too.
Claudette will be eight-years-old tomorrow. She should be eager. She should be excited. She should be counting the hours, minutes, seconds... Instead, she is none of these. She dreads the moment she will have to open her gift. Every year it's the same. Dolls. Crafts. Jewelry. Nothing that means anything to her. Maybe this year she'll smile and pretend she didn't want a magnifying glass or a collection of stones or a set of books on botany. Maybe… to make things easier… she'll pretend. Maybe that will make her mother less scared for her. Seeing her happy about her grades felt good. Real good.
Evan is fourteen years old and he knows something his father doesn't. The thought thrills him, amazes him, scares him. There is something his father doesn't know. Something the owner of one of the most profitable mines in all of Seattle doesn't know.
His father manages his workers with an iron fist. No, not an iron fist, brass knuckles. He calls them maggots, grovelling maggots. He's about to discover he's wrong. They're more than maggots, much more, they're men. And men working together can bring change. One of these men is inspiring others to take their lives back. If they can stand together, maybe, just maybe, they can bring in the union. With the union, they'll have rights, more than rights, they'll have dignity, freedom, time. Time to spend with their friends. Time to spend with their family. Time to be human. Evan knows something his father doesn't know... and he feels empowered.
Evan's father thrusts him to the ground, calls him weak, tells him he's got to stop being so nice to the maggots, stop talking to them, stop helping them. Keep them in line, break them, let them know who's boss. If you give them an inch, they'll take a yard. They're just using you!
Evan knows better than to say anything. His father punched and broke his jaw last year when he showed weakness. This year, he'd rather not sip dinner through a straw. This year he holds back, bites his tongue. He wants to tell his father about the union, but doesn't. He feels ashamed, torn between his loyalty for his father and for his friends, Bob, Tom, Jim. They deserve more.
Evan enjoys creating something from nothing. He's not an artist, but he enjoys sketching and he hides his sketches from his father. His father forbids sketching. Sketching is for weaklings, vagabonds, gypsies. He wants Evan to do worthy things.
He drags Evan to his most profitable mine, and teaches him how to manage maggots. He's hands on, very hands on, abusive, violent, brutal. The key is to break them, break their will, break their spirit. Once broken, a human is a tool that can be wielded to do anything. Broken. It's what he did to Evan's mother, it's what he's doing to him. But Evan still sketches, Sketching is defiance.
Evan watches his father yell at one of his workers. He's sick. He wants to leave. But he's not allowed. He leaves… he loses his job. Evan feels for the man. Wishes he could do something for him. He wants to tell him things are going to change. The union is coming. The union is coming and with it a good wage and fair working hours. But the man's lungs are black and his stomach is rot. Too much stress. Too much acid. Not enough sleep. He collapses. His father doesn't care. Kicks him in the gut. Tells Evan to drag him out of the mine. Evan drags him out. For a moment he feels disgusted at the man's weakness and wants to put... this… maggot out of its misery. He's becoming his father and he's not sure if that's a bad thing.
Evan's father forces him to set a bear trap in a dark forest. His father's obsessed with hunting bears. Always has been. Always will be. He tells him the story. Always the same story. He doesn't want to hear it but he will. His father was hunting with his brother when they ran into a grizzly bear. The bear tore his uncle's arm off and bit into his head. Evan's father jumped on the grizzly's back. Stabbed the bear endlessly. Killed the bear. Ripped open its stomach to retrieve his brother's head. Carried his brother's mutilated body ten miles to their family estate. This time it's ten miles. Last time it was five. His father grins. The story is changing with every telling. Sometimes Evan wonders if there even was a bear.
Evan's inspired in a way he's never been before. Furiously he sketches his father in a bear suit killing his uncle. He never met his uncle, but he's seen pictures. His uncle was a philanthropist. A bleeding heart. Disloyal. He would have run the business into the ground with proper wages and all that socialist crap. That's why he had to go. Evan doesn't have proof, but he knows. Deep down he knows his father murdered his uncle. Tied him up. Left him for a bear. There was no knife. No fight. No honor. Just a terrible death for a disloyal worm. Evan suspects all this and yet… he doesn't feel disgusted or ashamed. He feels something else. Something he's trying not to feel. Something… he won't admit to himself.
Evan looms over his father's bed and watches him sleep. He hates and loves him at the same time. Sometimes he wonders what his life would be like without him. He owes him so much and yet he's miserable and alone. He raises a massive grey stone and holds it there for a long minute that feels like forever. He could be free. Truly free. But he can't. Not like this. He could free himself in other ways. Accidents happen. Hunting accidents. Mining accidents. He could lure him into the bowels of the mine and ignite a stick of dynamite. No way he'd survive. But despite it all, Evan can't do it. His love is bigger than his hate. He owes him too much.
Evan sketches his father in a bear suit drowning his mother. He never believed his father's story. Something didn't feel right. His eyes. His grin. His lack of empathy. She was pulled into a current and never seen again. His mother… she was beautiful. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Fun. Full of compassion. His opposite. She didn't just go out to swim one morning and never come back. She was getting in his way and no one gets in his way. Not even family. Especially not family.
Obedience or death. Evan's tired of obedience. Yes, he's loyal to his father but he's also loyal to his friends. They talk to him. Encourage him. Think he's a great artist. He has friends. He's never really had a friend. His father wouldn't allow it. Waste of time. They're using you. Yes, he's loyal to his father but he's also loyal to his friends. They deserve better.
Evan's father stares at him across the dinner table. He knows. Maybe he doesn't know but he senses something's amiss. He has that look in his eye. That look that tells Evan he's in for it. He chews on a fatty piece of rabbit and hopes his father doesn't say anything. He should have known better than to keep something from him. His father knows. He always knows. Last year Evan lost his cool on a man who said something about his mother. He almost beat the man to death with a two-by-four while his father watched and laughed. The authorities pulled Evan away. He smiled at Evan and knew what he wouldn't admit to himself. He enjoyed beating on that man. Not because of the insult. Not because he felt threatened. But because he felt… Powerful... His father smiled. Apple doesn't fall to far from the tree, eh?
Evan find his sketches torn to bits. He puts the pieces together. All of them accounted for except one. He doesn't have the picture of his drowning mother. His father enters his room. Despair and dread overwhelm him. He waits for a blow that never comes. Instead his father tells him he has instinct and instinct is everything. He tells him he inherited his instinct from his side of the family. The same instinct that told him Evan was keeping something from him.
Don't pretend. I know. A few of your maggot friends sold you out for a few dollars. Evan starts but doesn't say anything. Can't say anything. The words are caught in his throat. He apologizes. His father says nothing. Walks away. Evan follows him to his bedroom where he sees… the picture of his dying mother… framed above the bed. His father tells Evan he will learn a lesson tomorrow. One he hopes he understands. Evan stares at his father and feels… hate… hate for the maggots who betrayed him and for his father… respect…. no… not respect… admiration…