Quick note: This book was entirely pre-written from around December 23rd to January 4th of 2019, meaning I had to write about one or two three thousand word chapters once a day which effectively killed my wrist. I know I don't really ask and it's probably a huge bother, but it would mean the world to me if you could leave a vote!

Entry 1

I believe that they sense I am growing desperate. Admittedly they would not be wrong, the king and the people of the Underground have been waiting for me to come forth with something, anything to free them from this world. I am not a miracle worker, I cannot end our problems with the snap of my fingers.

Though I feel we do need a miracle, even if such things are the work of fiction. The lights flicker even if I wish to not see such a thing, evidence that our attempts to colonise and fix a permanent life in the Underground will never happen. So perhaps I have been growing desperate.

The human's soul is too strong to be contained in either 1-S or 2-P, more alterations will have to be done in the future in order to ensure that they can contain the soul when I present them to the Barrier. And if the human soul is rejected still, than I fear the only stars we shall see will be the gemstones that glimmer in the dying light of Waterfall.

On another note, 1-S and 2-P began to make developments in their communication skills. They pass the time by conversing in incoherent babble, though it seems that they understand what is being spoken for they both speak in similar manners. They've even tried talking with the human that shares their cell, but the human refuses contact. I do not blame the human, it is illogical to get attached to objects that could break at the slightest touch. Experience has taught them to keep distant.

I write this down now because 1-S was able to string together a coherent sentence, suggesting that he and possibly his broth-

- his counterpart are capable of thought, of processing information and formulating their own ideas. How will they react as their development progresses? I've already shattered their world the second the plates were drilled into their hands, ripped away their only fabric of reality right from underneath their feet. I dread to think of what they will begin to use as an explanation for this, experiments are always much better when the test subjects aren't resistant. It's why humans use monkeys and mice, at least they did on the days of the Surface.

In other circumstances, perhaps this would be an ideal situation, the ability to create a living organism that was capable of consciousness as any regular being was. 1-S promised great potential of intellect, I even suppose he might have been a wonderful assistant should the circumstances have been different. But the two of them are vessels that have no other purpose than hosting a human soul to break the Barrier and save the rest of monsterkind. If it meant that a few had to suffer so that the rest of the Underground could go free, than that was a price I was willing to pay.

I only hope that when the generations of the future write about monsterkind and all that was done here, there might be some ounce of forgiveness.

~

You trailed your fingers against the cold and indifferent wall of your underground prison, feeling the intimate cracks and crevices that constructed the wall and had formed after years of neglect and abandonment. You supposed you liked the walls this way, with their own personal markings and distinguishing that made them different from every other wall in existence. No other green wall would have a crack at the corner for the second tile that was no wider than a hair. Sure, there might be a lot of walls with the same crack, but each crack was always going to be different in one wag or the other.

Some might have thought you to be mad for noticing these things, for paying so much attention to how a wall looked rather than obsessing yourself with the trivial passings of the world, wrapped yourself up in drama just as every other monster or human would have done had they been your age. Then again, you weren't really sure how old you were. It wasn't like you got to celebrate your birthday when you were locked away from the rest of society, no trace of your existence anywhere except for the laboratory that was your only home. The thought that you could live and die without anyone having the faintest idea of the struggles you had endured was enough to chill your blood to ice.

You turned your attention back to the wall, not wanting your mind to think about anything other from this green pile of brick and tile that kept you confined. You thought that you might hate this green wall, hate it more than anything else, though to be fair, you really weren't sure what lay beyond this green prison. Perhaps you and the others were the only living things in existence, trapped as refugees from some forgotten universe. You hoped not.

The others, that's what you liked to call them. You didn't like to think of the other test subjects as living things, as friends or family that you could form a relationship with. You supposed that in a way, it made you just like him, the scientist who had locked you and the others away, been the very reason that you had come into this futile existence.

You weren't very sure about what the scientist was doing or why he was doing such a thing, what calamity had forced him into doing such a thing, breeding living things in order to perform all sorts of tests on them. You didn't think he liked it very much, even if he did put on an indifferent attitude every time you or the others were strapped into a cold metal table, screaming your throat raw as electricity crackled up and down your spine, pushing you just to the verge of death...

But one thing you were certain of, you had lived much longer than the scientist anticipated. Throughout the span of your life, a multitude of test subjects had come and gone, both apart of the skeleton species. Some lasted for hours and others for days and sometimes years. But eventually they would cease from existence and wither away into dust, some fluke within their coding that ended up being the death of them.

They all died in the end.

And that's why you refused to even consider the recent test subjects your friends. No, you were better off convincing yourself that they were nothing more than objects. Things were something that you could break, something that could go away. You might be sad for a while, but it would be easier to move on. It was better that way.

Though admittedly, it was getting harder and harder to regard the two test subjects that shared your cell as just objects, animate forms of matter that were given the illusion of being alive when in reality, they were hanging onto existence by a shard of hope and determination. They had lasted longer than the others, offering no signs of decaying or withering into dust as the others had before them. It was getting harder to stomp out the hope inside you, the vain hope that maybe, just maybe, there were others within this prison that would live as long as you could, monsters that you could talk with rather than help bury.

The translucent blue force field that held you confirmed shimmered out of existence as the scientist approached the holding cell, dragging the other two skeletons behind him. It was intriguing how the test subjects, no matter how many new ones would replace them, always seemed to resemble the same species, always bore some cruel appearance that mimicked the very scientist that was the key in your torture. A reminder that no matter what, even if he was at the opposite end of the universe, you would still be trapped in this damn cell with things that looked like him, that he would always be there, always watching, always waiting in the dark and the cold.

You knew what came next as the test subjects were thrown into the prison cell, what always came next. "Come with me," the scientist growled, grabbing you by the forearm and dragging you alongside him. It was useless to thrash or try to escape from him, the scientist was sure to keep control over every aspect of the underground laboratory that he ran, including the living objects inside of it. Even if you had tried to run, your soul was held in place by some arcane magic that the scientist himself seemed only capable of wielding.

"It's almost been twelve hours since our last session. I thought you were going soft on me," you snarled through gritted teeth, though you weren't sure if that was even true. It was hard to dictate the passing of time when you lived the entirety of your day in the same place. This did not invoke a response from the scientist as he shoved you into a room, turning to face a machine with multiple switches that he began to flip at random.

"It is advised that you do not move during the process of this experiment lest you wish to endure excruciating pain," the scientist nodded as he strapped your limbs against the cold metal table, a place that you knew all too well, where you had spent the majority of your life.

Though every part of you hated to admit it, you loved the pain, a part of your mind addicted to it as if it were a drug and the scientist was the dealer. Often whenever you found yourself staring at the green walls of the prison that you had spent your entire life in, there was an aching numbness of panic and isolation, a sort of blank and catatonic state in which you were no more nonchalant than a book shelf or the straw mat that you slept on.

But the pain, the fire that raged through your veins when your spine was ignited into flame, how good that felt! It made you feel alive, cleared away that dusted feeling and made you different from the inanimate objects within these catacombs of green! You weren't sure if it was a symptom of insanity, one of the first signs that like the scientist's other experiments, your internal structures had gone critical and you were beginning to perish from existence. But you did not think that this was true. You had lived when dozens had died, why would you die now?

"What even is the point of this anyway?" you asked as the scientist punched a few more commands into the machine next to you. It occurred to you that you did not even know your torturer's name, the one who had kept you under lock and key for so many years. You didn't even remember him saying it, but then again, why would he? Perhaps it was best that way, that your torturer did not have a name nor did you want to learn it. Things with names were alive, creatures that were capable of thought and emotion. Without a name, the scientist was just a scientist and it was easier to hate and loathe him.

"That is not for your disclosure," the scientist replied coolly as he strapped a metal cuff around your wrist, microscopic needles digging into the surface of your skin.

"Don't you think I have a right to know since I'm about to be tortured?" you snarled, wishing that you could slam your fist into his skull, watch him wither into dust just like the rest of his experiments, the objects that you refused to admit were alive no matter how many times they wailed or cried at night. It was best to think them inanimate, it was less painful to watch them choke on their own decaying bile before collapsing into ash.

"That is a right entitled only to living things," the scientist shrugged. "You are an artificial life form whether you like it or not, grown out of a few drops of blood that were left behind from another human that ventured through this world. An artificial life is alive in the sense that I am alive or any other creature that was produced naturally. Therefore I am in no obligation to grace you with such an answer."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night," you mumbled as the scientist moved away and turned to face the machine. The mystery that shrouded your past was a gathering cloud of doubt that always seemed to follow you no matter how far you ran from it, knowing that there were parts of your life that you could not remember, reasons for your existence that the scientist never disclosed. That was the question - was it not? Why go through all of this trouble without a reason?

There wasn't much more time after that to think about such things as the first bolts of electricity transferred from the engine of the machine into the confines of your flesh, radiant energy that danced from one cell to the next, igniting them in flame and chaos. Your body went through a fit of involuntary seizures, your whole form dancing in rhythm to the beat of the power that was tearing you apart.

Through the midst of the pain, you began to scream and wail and cry, though if they were for grief or jubilation, that was yet to be.

You awoke a few hours later after the pain had subsided, nothing more than a faint stiffness in your back that was a brutal reminder of the torture, the freedom you had endured earlier today. The tile floor that your hand brushed against seemed to be taunting you, a constant symbol that you had spent your entire life trapped in this damn place and would probably live out the rest of your days doing the same.

"Hurt?"

Your eyes flickered over to one of the skeletons standing in the corner of the cell, watching you intently. You weren't sure of their names or what they were calling themselves, but none of that mattered. You refused to get close to them, to offer even the slightest possibility of having a relationship should they wither away into dust at your very touch. You had made that mistake before with the dozens of other experiments that the scientist had produced in your lifetime, forged friendships only to have them crumble away right before your very eyes.

None of the test subjects had advanced to such a stage in their lifespan to where they could form speech, an interesting development that you couldn't help but take note on despite your unwillingness to be close to the two skeletons. While it was primitive compared to what most monsters spoke, it was still a sign that they were capable of processing information, that they were sentient beings that were capable of thought and emotion...

The tallest of the two skeletons was the one speaking. You noticed the way his left hand drifted slightly over to the handplate that had been drilled into his bones, a reminder from the scientist that they were nothing more than dispensable objects that could be replaced at any time. They were not alive, not even the slightest.

But then again, when did objects need reminding?

"I'm fine," you snapped a little louder than you wanted, agitated by the events of the day. The taller skeleton seemed to recoil from your words and you felt a sudden urge to reach out to him but immediately thought better of yourself. There was no point in getting attached, in letting yourself break down the barriers you had erected around yourself so that you would remain numb when they too crumbled into dust. When -

"It okay!" The taller skeleton exclaimed and gestures to a hairline crack on his skull that was poorly patched up with gauze. "I hurt too, so now we are the same!"

It was strange seeing the test subjects with wounds and reminders of the cruelty they had endured. With the previous experiments, the scientist had usually been able to heal them then and there, and yet he no longer seemed to retain the ability after the emergence of these two subjects and the gaping holes in his hands.

Your eyes flickered to the shortest of the two test subjects, whom unlike his brother, was placated with staring at the green wall. You wondered if he was thinking about the cracks, the small reminders that no matter how hopeless something may seem at the moment, time was the ultimate judge over the passing of things, wearing everything away and grinding them into dust.

And yet the taller skeleton's wavering smile, the way he seemed so determined to refuse the fire inside him to be quenched broke something inside you, cracked one of the walls you had set around your mind, that like the green walls, showed that nothing really lasted forever.

The taller skeleton seemed to realise this and sat down next to you, looking at the faint outline of a scar that was just visible over the green garment that was your only piece of clothing. "Did he hurt you there?" The skeleton asked.

"A long time ago," you chuckled darkly, looking over at the shortest skeleton, wondering what was going through his mind, how he was adjusting to this imprisonment when his brother seemed to be trying to make every second so much brighter than what it actually was. You couldn't help but stop the tip of your fingers from moving to the small of your back, where your scar ended. The skeletons may have had their handplates drilled into their hands, but you had your scar. That was the funny thing about human flesh, the way it was nothing more than paper and the scientist was merely the painter.

"We'll all be okay," the skeleton reassured you before looking over at his brother. "He'll stop doing this soon, I can tell he doesn't like it! We're going to be free one day, I just know it."

You looked down at the skeleton and then to the cracks on the tile of the wall. You had broken your rule, allowed yourself to get close to the experiments when they could possibly crumble into dust at any moment. You knew that, better than anyone here, witnessed it time after time again as skeletons cane and went, succumbing to a fate nearly worse than death, withering away as time went by.

Nothing really lasted.