Hi again. How are you? Good? Great. Comfy? Don't be. I need you wide awake for this shit, because if She finds out you're listening... well, I don't know if She has it in Her to punish either one of us, but She's shy. It'll be a whole thing I'm not prepared to deal with. Look, just... let me walk you through what a week looks like for me now, okay? I got this -- hold on -- here it is -- log I've been keeping. My memories get... wobbly... so this is how I like to keep myself me. Uh, guess we'll start with... oh, man, this goes all the way back to before I was even part of her church. Damn. Okay, uh... first meeting, I guess. Starts like...
FRIDAY 9/12 - Goddess showed up at my house at 3:30 in the fucking morning, clearly drunk out of Her infinite mind, and said 'My Darling Babydolle, Imbibe In Mine Blood And Thou Shalt Joine Me In Holy Communis- Communions. Communions.' She kept trying to force me to finish Her bottle of Everclear. Can one of Her high priestesses make sure She's, like, good?
I'd do it, but I took a hit of Her weed pen and that definitely was not weed. I see infinite pasts and infinite futures, dreams and waking moments bleeding together into one single moment, hearing every yawn like a prayer, and I tried to move to get more comfortable and accidentally plucked the concept of that one Jungle Book snake from reality altogether. Can't even remember his name. But for some reason I feel REALLY relieved?
Oh, right. I did eventually end up finishing the bottle and kissing Her until She giggled and said 'I'll Be Righte Back' and disappeared behind the furniture like that fucker from the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon TV show. And then my Cookie Run Kingdom friend texted me the next day 'cause apparently they added a cookie called Sleepy Cookie. And it's just a low-res jpeg photo of, like, me? Sleeping? Apparently it's taking over the whole meta too so I have no idea how to feel about it."
Uh, and I guess the rest of the conversation's just about Cookie Run. Fucking gacha games. She wants me to-- ugh. I'll get to it. I'll get to it!! Okay. Next one. Ready? Cut that out. Can't be ready, either. Means you're on a rhythm. Don't want Her domain expanding 'cause I read this shit too poetic-style. So. Um, so. Next one's a diary entry? Goes like...
MON 9/15 - Goddess of Hypnosis keeps appearing in my dreams. But only when I have the haunting vivid ones about unfamiliar places twisting and warping into crude reflections of my childhood home, and only so She can raid the fridge while I'm busy confronting my demons. Apparently nostalgia makes the leftover chili really really good??
THURS 9/18 - Cornered Her in one of them last night. All I did was walk into the room and She immediately pinned Herself against the wall, sweating, loudly saying "Oh No, Thou Hast Found Me! What Divine Punishment Must I Fear Lest I Return To This Realm And Feast Of Thine Dad's 2013 Leftover Chili Forever More..." I ended up hitting Her with a broom. She still moaned. Thinking of getting into memory play so She finds someone else to bother.
FRI 9/19 - Well that didn't fucking work. Girlfriend dropped me and instead of visualizing a robot repair scene like I was supposed to I woke up in an unfamiliar house with a horrible headache. The Goddess of Hypnosis showed up wearing a fake mustache. Said Her name was "The Divine Bigge Sister of Refrigerator Inspectione." Wouldn't let any triggers through my head 'til I showed Her where the kitchen was. Of course she immediately rips the door of the fridge open and begins eating some kind of red goop in a bowl?? And then a little splashes in my mouth and immediately I have a Ratatouille moment waking up crying and sobbing about my father's kindness 'cause he didn't put "beans" in his "Chilly." Girlfriend says this is called an abreaction. I say it's a declaration of war.
So, at this point, I'm pissed off, and meanwhile She's obsessed with me or something. She starts reading my posts and gets the wrong fucking idea, apparently, 'cause -- okay. A common thing I post about is, like, brainwashing one weak person as a mole to get to the rest of their team. You know, hero team shit? But She sees this and starts messaging my actual fucking friends trying to "get to me." According to my now-girlfriend, all She did was broadcast divine missives to everyone who meditated just to ask "Canst I Brainwash Thee?" and if they said no She just flooded their brain with "PLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASE?"
Oh, you're smiling, huh? You think that's funny? 'Cause this is my fucking life. Back then I only narrowly got out of seeing Her every day 'cause I pissed her off when I started instant-losing on purpose. Turned out She was the goddess of the process, not the end result. So when I actually went under? She'd have to hand me off to Hypnos. Little self-conditioning, and I could fall asleep real easy in, like, three seconds. Plus, Hypnos really liked the company n' kept slipping me drachmas. Couldn't use 'em as money, sure, but they did make great pogs.
Then, of course, you probably know 'bout the whole, uh... Hypnos and Thanatos... thing. While those two were, y'know, busy, the Goddess swoops in and takes over sleep for a few days. Just long enough to put me on the -- did you know there's a blacklist for sleep? Yeah. That's what insomnia is. You piss off Hypnos, or whoever Hypnos lets hold the pen for five seconds, and you're banned from sleeping. Fucking miserable. Goddess appeared to me, brokered a deal, badda-bing, badda-bang. Priestess. Not the High Priestess, mind you. But She said I was her favorite. I assumed She said that to everyone.
I had no fucking idea how wrong I was. I had no fucking idea how much She'd need me, either. She ended up fucking with me a few times after that, 'cause I knew how easy it'd be to lose the ability to sleep again and then I'd basically always be in trance. But I think the big turning point was probably the Silksong thing.
