DELIVER US FROM THIS HELL, OH LORD.
[BEGIN LOG]
And…. starting. Here from RAISA. We just want a breakdown of 9432. There's been requests to change the documentation. Not the strangest we've seen, but still enough to ask more about why.
Fine. What do you want to know?
Tell us about the site.
Oh…where do I start?
That damned place.
Item Number: Ignored
Object Class: Unacknowledgeable
Special Containment Prayers: May our thoughts be guarded from those of that place. Let it be such that we never dwell on it, nor visit it again. We have blessed our creation, the lowly psalm.aic that we have shaped with our lowlier hands, with the humble task of bringing protection to its hallowed halls. May its bullets be swift and its protection perfect.
Bless the Foundation's servants who work to protect us. Selected were they by heavenly mandate, for their minds are filled with obedience and respect of the word of authority. Questioning is not permitted in this house of God.
Let this not be confused for justification. May this file in its entirety serve as a humble apology. If we are known to have sinned, may Your forgiveness be kind and swift. If this mercy is to be withheld from us, let our end be painless and in eternal Glory.
Description: Oh Lord, this location was once a place of honor, the abandoned Foundation Site-45185, in those chilly woods of Krakow, Poland. We have left it alone in our mortal limitations for the last twenty years, but the shafts of Your light have graced it in our absence still. These sacred walls were a place of care, of medicine, of healing, for those which we had kept safe and hidden from the world at large.
It was simple. We had plenty of medical wings in other sites, sure, but this place. Oh, this place. Anyone could tell you it was different. 45185 had to exist because they needed some quick training after a few diseases had run through some sites. We were supposed to be an "incubator," if you will, for Foundation medical specialists on the entire continent. That made the whole energy feel… special. Like we had been chosen.
Managed to cobble together a team of what I would say were the best surgeons, nurses, even the fucking environmental services members were top-notch. Naturally, it soon became somewhat of a specialty site. Not on paper, of course, because if anyone knew, oh boy. What a target we'd be.
How good were you?
Oh, you wouldn't believe it.
[END LOG]
We were blessed to not have lost a single patient to that damned embrace of Death. Such a success must have been divinely ordained. Our investigations were paused, stopped to bless us with blissful ignorance. We feared we would lose it, oh Almighty.
The skills we were given, that knowledge we would gain within its chambers. It felt supernatural in nature, but we were certain it was not so. We had to have been special, dear Almighty.
[BEGIN LOG]
Our futile efforts.
Where did you realize things started to change?
I remember the stats that came out. We did checks, a little review of our charts right before it came, and we should have had a quarter of our patients die. Right there and then on the table. None of them would have made it.
I remember a few. This one thing, a nasty-looking squid-bird monstrosity. Lost probably a gallon of blood. No bigger than my arm. Should have bled out. Lived. Did better than before.
Even the ones that used to be people. Could have had every kind of cancer, but give us a few days? Remission. Every single time. I don't know how. I really don't.
Is it possible it was anomalous?
Maybe. I don't think so. I think it had to be our fault.
Fault?
Why d'you think I didn't return your calls?
Meaning?
I don't have a good explanation to give you. I can't tell you what you want to hear. We didn't know how to do half the stuff we did. Our hands moved like they were possessed. We made million to one decisions every single day, and they were as easy as unwrapping a bandage. We felt… powerful.
No one died on our watch. We started to take everything that wandered through our doors, whether it was our anomaly or not. Hell, whether it was anomalous or not. I think we stopped caring. Just wanted to help.
Help who?
Them, of course.
[END LOG]
But we were forced to close this place in our humility, in our powerlessness, twenty years ago. The official reason is no need for that place anymore, but we know the truth; we had closed this place for we failed! Our monument to our misdeeds remains there on the operating table, worked upon to this day.
That monument, that beautiful Patient, the only Patient, remains within. Oh Your Grace, due to its great size, it has required the fullness of this place for its care. Therefore, the Vile Place has been wholly devoted unto its purpose, transformed into but one vast chamber of healing and restoration, for that blessed Patient in all Their Light.
[BEGIN LOG]
It busted through our doors that one day. Hurt to touch. Hurt to look at. But we took it like anything all the same. I think we knew deep down that it was important. That this was the big one.
God, we couldn't understand it. We could touch it, try to force it into a human-like shape in our mind. And as soon as we did, we knew it wanted us to know that it was dying. Internals needed multiple transplants. Managed to somehow scrounge together decent enough artificials from the printers. Grafts on the outside. Bled like a river.
Fuck, it looked like the most ragged thing you'd ever seen before, and oh, the stench. It was such a big body, you couldn't escape it. It felt like your brain reeked. Organs where they shouldn't. Growing back as soon as we cut them away.
I don’t remember much that was concrete. Just the senses. Tried to block a lot of it out. I remember wings. So many wings.
Was hard to believe. It didn’t have any, unlike its buddies. Too bright to tell anything else.
[END LOG]
The Patient did descend upon us on that day. It carried with it the angelic heralds, the messengers, and the trumpeters of the Grand Horns of Heaven, and the stretcher it sat upon was one of the warmest fleece.
How we did speak with our fellow servants! But they did not need our words; they knew of our thoughts. For if we had let Your name ever pass our lips, they would know in their all-seeing Wisdom. They would hear from their seats up on high.
[BEGIN LOG]
You'd think they'd be nicer. Threatened us in case we couldn't get the job done. They knew how good we were. How good we thought we were. We heard them loud and clear 'til our ears bled.
Some of us had concerns, sure. Some of us always had concerns. But we pushed them, nudged them, encouraged them to get along with the rest of us. We were already doing that ourselves, forcing our minds to fit a round peg through a square hole. That this was just any other patient.
Maybe all of it was a punishment for thinking we were like them. We had gotten to the point that we really, truly believed that our hands carried the same weight as their miracles. That our sutures could call back souls already in their grasp. That we were them, and that they played at being us.
[END LOG]
And in our folly, we should have declined, oh Father! You were our Patient! You were not a Patient for our humble halls. But we did not. Greed blinded us! We took up our scalpels and we cut! We cut and cut and cut, and lo, for we had tried our best to save that exalted Patient! To save You!
We thought we knew better. That our ways which we had done so perfectly were correct, and right, and would simply work again! They did not. Oh, how they did not. Those effects did not linger. Perhaps they had never existed in the first place, and we had been banished from Your embrace.
Our gloves ran golden with the Patient's blood. Your blood. Piles upon piles of biohazardous material, dear Lord. Bones shattered between our fingers, crumbled to dust as if they were nothing. Muscles fell apart as if they were made of tissue. Our hands felt all of those hearts stop. We knew we had committed Sin. We told ourselves otherwise.
We told ourselves You were still alive. There is still a chance, we hope. We must believe there is one.
[BEGIN LOG]
Where our sins were committed.
You failed?
We did not. No, we did not.
You don't seem to believe that.
It was just, well, a minor setback. Surely they'd be fine, we thought. We could not think it. We could not say it. They would know. They would hear. It was just a complication. A normal, necessary complication.
And so everything went fine?
Well, no. They were fine, until they started flatlining. Every single heart monitor, just. Beeeeeep. I couldn't take it anymore. We must've shocked twenty, thirty times? And then the panic.
And?
And? Nothing. Nothing to do. Nothing to do but fear. A few of us kept cutting, and lost their minds. After the screaming, it was quiet, mostly. We had to be quiet. They would hear us. Nearly tased one of the nurses to get her to shut up. She kept repeating its name over and over and over. We didn't want them to know.
Then we left. We packed up and left an assistant behind.
Personnel?
No. All other patients and personnel were evacuated. Just it. And the surgical room .aic.
And that worked?
He was always capable, Portal.
Not what I asked.
Yes, it is.
[END LOG]
Oh Father! how our faith was tested. How we watched this place grow and blossom into a larger facility than we recall. How we tallied the amounts of all blood, guts, viscera coming out. How we forced ourselves to ignore, to forget.
How we failed to confront what we became. How we thought we could still escape, oh Lord. Yet in the days since we had left the Patient behind, did we curse the day. The sun on our bodies, felt like fire from above! Music felt like screams of angels! We felt You had cursed us, and You would have been right to do so!
Living in this half-existence, living in this tortured purgatory on Earth. Our minds would not quiet. It was not Your way. No. No, it was Your way. The audiohazards! Oh how we heard that condemned Place, that beast grow. We could hear the clack of the carts of injection supplies, we could hear the opening of the chests for the ice-boxes, we could hear the flatlines. You ensured it did not escape us.
[BEGIN LOG]
Is there anything else that you remember?
One thing, I suppose.
The face. The damned face. Changing and changing and changing. Always one of horror, of pain, of misery. As if we'd forgotten to give anesthesia.
[END LOG]
Thusly did we transfer that Great Responsibility to our own humble servants, those loyal things we have made. So did Portal take on a new name, baptized by circumstance. And in this way were the Gates closed to us forever. Psalm did work for these twenty years without a single break.
We cannot hope to encroach upon Your sanctuary within. Your tired rest must be necessary. The Akiva which You emit is far, far too great for a mortal existence. Thus, as a Soul without Body, has Psalm been given the freedom to order whatever he needs and to perform what is required. All to serve You. Let it be known he has done as such.
And thus, did Psalm expand and grow these halls into Your sole room. So too did he add a cold storage, as he added the drainers of Blood and the protected walls like those of Jericho.
We cannot tell them, oh Lord, if your servants come. This information must remain classified, we tell ourselves. Psalm's work, if fruitless, is important. We must deceive Your divine Actors. Forgive us for this deceit.
[BEGIN LOG]
Or?
All he’s been requesting recently is ice, scalpels, and fuel for an incinerator. I’m sure things are okay. What need is there for a blood transfusion or gauze anyway?
But do we have visual-
No. No visuals. If it's gone, then good. It survived. It's free. I don't fucking care what Psalm is doing, if it's left us well alone.
What do you think's happened?
It doesn't matter. Either way, the guilt is already weighing on me. I don't know what to do about it. I'm not good at absolution, at forgiveness. We are good at medicine. We’ve always been. It’s the one thing that was true about working at 9432.
And if we're wrong?
We might be. There's no way to know. This may be a test. You know… he does that sometimes. This may be the real thing. This may be evil incarnate playing us. Either way, we do not win.
[END LOG]
If this is a test of our faith, of our ability to understand, please show us, your bestial failures enlightenment. We require Your aid. Your light. Your deeper knowledge as to what this all was for. Do You mean to test us? Do You mean to punish us?
We cannot take it anymore, oh Lord. These twenty years are but a blink to You, but an eternity to us. Deliver us. Free us. Free us from this weight we have placed on ourselves.
[BEGIN LOG]
Any professional recommendations?
We need to survive. I don't want to go out like this, but I know I'm already in hell. I can't take more of it. I don't understand them, but I know they hate us. I can tell. Or maybe we're all already in hell. Maybe they think this fucking trick is funny, or a proper punishment. But they're supposed to tell you, you're supposed to know. This, whatever this is…they wouldn't do that, surely.
They're supposed to be kind, those winged things that came with it. I remember it, clear as anything. Their grating voices, like squealing tires forming the vague shape of words. That they would not forgive. That they would not understand. That were we to fuck anything, anything up, that they would know.
Which means they have to know. We can pretend, and say we're not sure if it's neutralized, blame Psalm, throw them off the scent. It's all we can do if they don't know.
But if they do, what's taking them so long?
And the file? Your initial request to change the contents?
If they know… what else can we do other than say sorry?
[END LOG]
And so we pen this Prayer and this Plea to You, in hopes that this delivers us mercy and sweetens our vile existences to you. And do we hope that we might be forgiven. In Your power, let our assumptions be those of necessity and not of Vanity:
Oh Almighty, we must assume You will heal and return in divine Glory to Your kingdom.
Oh Exalted, we must assume You are needing of further care by us, Your lowly servants.
Oh High King, we must not acknowledge Your state.
Oh Lord, we must assume all is as it should be, lest we invite holy fire upon us.
Oh God, we must assume this is not our fault.
For the safety of our souls, please let us be correct. Amen.