It’s there, every time he closes his eyes. The void just beneath the surface of our world and spiralling endlessly through its bottomless depths: the labyrinth. His brother is down there, among the fragmented architecture of a thousand civilizations, among the broken pieces stolen and reassembled pieces from people’s lives. As sleeplessness takes its toll he started seeing him in the real world, turning a corner or standing across a busy street before disappearing again. Usually before something important happened.
Charlie never had a brother. That’s what the people who know him insist and they can provide proof too, photographs from his childhood and so on. It’s never enough for Charlie, it doesn’t matter what they show him or how they plead when he hears and sees his brother in that place whenever he sleeps. It’s not like they can conclusively prove a negative anyway.
Unable to let it go and unwilling to continue to alienate himself from his friends and family, Charlie has sought support elsewhere. The internet is a cornucopia of echo chambers for any belief or ideology someone can dream up. There Charlie built himself a home and others came flocking to it like flypaper.
There are a lot of similarities between their stories, too many to easily discredit. Many of them differ on key points though, one poster insists that heavy metal band GWAR is trapped down there despite the fact everyone knows about them and they’re still active. Trolls and bad actors are the least of it, Charlie has begrudgingly given room to people he genuinely believes are delusional and who he might be making worse. He feels he can’t judge and at this point it’s too late to root them out without wiping the slate clean and he needs this.
The community that he moderates isn’t just a support group for people to commiserate about the missing parts of themselves that no one remembers but them, it’s a place to collate experiences and pool expertise and resources towards action. There’s a vocal community agitating for public acknowledgement even as others try to shout them down, not wanting to draw attention to the thing that drove them underground in the first place. There are others studying the labyrinth, trying to figure out how and why it takes things and, if it’s a real place, find out where it is. The disappearance of a group of urban explorers affiliated with the community was a blip in news stream but ironically gave heart to that cross-section of the group’s membership.
Theories about the labyrinth range from the idea that it’s a Jungian prison whose jailors attack those incongruous to the universal subconscious, that it’s an alien harvesting tool or that it’s a repository for offcuts of our lives from parallel dimensions bleeding into our own. The one idea that is roundly heckled is that it’s a tool for healing, that instead of being afraid or angry that they should be willing, submissive dream-explorers and find true resolution at its heart. Charlie has resorted to public banning anyone who touts this line, it makes them more vocal on other platforms but the labyrinth’s danger is the one thing he’s unwilling to concede. He’s more worried about the ones who go quiet anyway, what if they found something? Or something found them?
STATS
Personality: Apart from automatic reflexes it takes Charlie a second to react to anything, he’s always dead on his feet but restlessly awake. Even then he speaks slowly, taking the time to measure his words and gauge the reactions of whoever he’s speaking with.
Rage: Being singled out.
Noble: Even handedness.
Fear: What if I’m crazy? (Self)
Obsession: Get my brother back from the labyrinth.
Wound Threshold: 50.
Online Community Moderator 60% (Substitutes for Notice, Protects Helplessness, Protects Isolation.)
Hypnagogic Insight 60% (Vague Information, Casts Rituals, Use Gutter Magick.)
Shock Gauges
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