Tale – The Hole in the Lake

I still have no real clue as to what is going on.

Everything has been jumbled up. Nothing makes sense. Worse, Arkay has stopped talking to me. He wants to, but something or someone is stopping him from doing so. It’s not just him answering my questions, he won’t talk to me at all. Death says that he can’t be trusted. Arkay says Death breaks promises. I don’t know who is right.

In other news, I saw something different today. The giant lake where we are… being held, there is a deep trench in the middle of it. You can’t see it from the surface but one of the Colourful Six, the bitch-born blue and green one, pushed me into the water and I saw it there. Of course, being in the water and unfamiliar with my new body, I panicked and didn’t explore it or anything, butbI definitely intend to later. Once I have worked out how to swim. One of the othee Colourful Six members dragged me out of the water when they realised I was struggling. Really, I’m not even sure if it WAS water. It felt rather viscous. Not quite swimming in treacle, but still hard.

I’ll need to improve my swimming if I want to go down there again. On my own, at least. The Colourful Six had no interest in whatever was down there, and it wasn’t until Arkay returned later on that I realised he couldn’t talk to me.

Actually, thinking back, maybe he couldn’t talk at all. I didn’t see him talking to the others. That might be because he thinks they are “cock-gobblers” but I don’t know. Death visits him regularly and gives him different tasks compared to the rest of us. Between how Death acts when he is around, how Arkay acts when she’s around and his abundance of missing memories from the last two weeks or so, I’m pretty sure Death is hiding something. And why wouldn’t she? She is Death after all, even though she’s rather… unconventional.

Really though, I think I need to get out of here if I want to find out the truth. No one will give it to me straight, at least no one in here will. There has to be something beyond these high walls, beyond this cage.

The way I see it, there are two ways out. I somehow scale these massive walls, or I swim down into the water. The river that feeds into the lake is cut off and inaccessible to me, I already checked. Whenever Arkay disappears, it is because Death wishes him away. The other guys seem perfectly happy just to wander around though. Whether Arkay wants out or not, I don’t know but I hope he does.

That reminds me, I am certain someone is attacking Arkay. He doesn’t look bruised and he doesn’t have any cuts or anything, but he just seems to be in pain more often than one should be. Alright, I’ve hurt myself a few times, but the pain is oddly brief. Injuries don’t last long at all. But Arkay limps around and just seems really tender.

Death HAS to be hurting him. He doesn’t talk to me and she is the only thing stopping him. He stands up to the Colourful Six. Heck, I stand up to them, despite them saying I’m the youngest. They threaten me with numbers, I stare at them then they back down.

I did learn something though. Since the last time I wrote this but before Arkay fell silent, I discovered what everyone meant when they said I was a V8. They genuinely mean versions. Death has different versions of Veth. Literally. Apparently Veth have become more… uh… humanoid. Arkay called them Thropic but I think he meant humanoid. More upright and more deadly.

But the dumb thing is, I think my V8 form is actually weaker than Arkay’s V7 form. Arkay changes his looks. He adapts to things while I tend to just barrel through them. The last thing Arkay said before he got dragged away and forced to shut up was that he was “too good” and “too strong” for her.

Maybe Arkay will help me get out of here. He seems like the sort who longs for freedom. If some lower version Veth thing can adapt and change, what’s stopping me from doing the same? Plus, the poor thing could do with some freedom.