[Fan Fiction] Sin and Sorrow

**Edit** (Thanks Zola!)

This story begins with "Roger the Damned", "Black Forest", "Oh Ye Mortals!", "In the Circle Cocytus", and
Story Board

Sin and Sorrow

Roger Smith blinked his eyes in an attempt to clear the fog from his mind. He groaned under the familiar sensation of an approaching headache and rubbed his head in a futile attempt to stave it off. As he shakily tried to get to his feet in the darkness, he felt someone grab his arm and help him up.

“Are you all right Major?” asked the woman, “That was a pretty bad blast, and you got caught in the worst of it.”

“Angel?” Roger asked before his eyes adjusted and he could see her face. It was indeed Angel, and she was glaring at him.

“Major?” she asked urgently, “Are you all right?”

“Where am I? What happened, Angel?” he asked.

Her frown deepened. “I’m Lieutenant Lance, sir. We’re in the main silo. Don’t you remember? We were attempting to dismantle one of the Deis, and there was an explosion.”

“The Deis?” Roger asked stupidly.

“Yes sir, more specifically, the Black 0158 model. It’s still there, sir. The technicians have cleared away the mess from the blast and are working on the head now. Look. Burg is having them remove the face plating now.”

Roger looked in the direction that she was pointing. He seemed to be in an enormous skeletal room with high ceilings and strange blinking machines. At the other end of the room, a black megadeus lay on its back as a team of men removed the mechanical workings in its head. A young, wiry man in overalls with a grubby bandage over one eye stood at the top of a crane, directing the men below. He could not see the mecha clearly, but he knew the outline well enough to realize that it was exactly the same as Big O.

Roger looked down and saw that he was still wearing his suit, although it was embarrassingly shabby. He buttoned up the coat, straightened the collar, and made a futile attempt to flatten his mussed hair. He could not remember how he had come to be in this place. Angel watched him quietly as he tried to put himself together. He noticed that she was wearing an official-looking brown uniform and a peaked hat. She pulled a comb out of her pocket and offered it to him. He nodded his thanks and then went to work on his hair.

“The general and the foreman are on their way, sir,” she said, “Maybe you would like me to speak with them for you?”

“Yes Angel,” he said, trying to sound as if he knew what he was doing, “That would be fine.”

She scowled. “Lieutenant Lance,” she corrected. “You’d better go sit down, sir.”

She turned him towards a small, enclosed structure with large glass windows, and he went to it without protest. Inside, there was a paper-strewn desk surrounded by file cabinets and a long, brown, musty-looking couch. He sat down on the filthy thing and tried to gather his wits. He couldn’t quite remember where he was supposed to be or what he was supposed to be doing, and the more he tried to piece his thoughts together, the more they floated away from him.

He gave up and began exploring the dingy hole of an office. He pulled open a file cabinet and flipped through the labels. To his surprise, he found a file labeled, “Roger Smith”. He pulled it out and opened it. Inside there was a photograph and an information sheet. The photograph was uninteresting, except that in it, Roger found himself to be unusually unkempt. The information sheet was an enigma. Many of the general sections had been listed as “undisclosed”, including his birthday, place of birth, parents, and profession. It was, however, a paragraph at the bottom that Roger found interesting. Handwritten in precise strokes, it read:

Wayneright,

R. Smith’s background before the war is scanty where it is existent. I assume he was an unemployed vagabond—a casualty of the economic crash—though he refuses to disclose any information. A pilot of unusual skill during the war, he rose through the ranks to come under my direct supervision in the land division. His especial knowledge of the Deis and stoic style lead me to personally recommend him for Dismantling Project A. His lack of credentials or ID can surely be overlooked considering the state of things after the blasts.

G. Rosewater

Roger read the paragraph again and again, but each time it made less sense to him, so he closed the file and put it back in the cabinet. There were voices outside the trailer now, and Roger thought he recognized them, so he opened the door. Angel was standing a few paces away next to two men, and a young woman.

One of the men looked up and saw Roger standing in the doorway. “There he is!” he said with satisfaction. “He doesn’t look sick to me, Lieutenant. Come over here, Major Smith, and give us the report!”

Roger cringed, and wished for a moment that he had not opened the door, but then he saw the young woman who was standing next to the man who had spoken. She was a thin, pale girl of about twenty, dressed casually in denim slacks and a red sweater. Her attire was strange, she looked older, and her hair was much longer than it should be, but Roger recognized her. It was Dorothy.

“Dorothy?” He said under his breath.

No one else appeared to have heard his whispered remark, but Dorothy looked at him with a hint of flirtation in her eyes that was, at the very least, unsettling.

“Come on, Major,” said the man who had spoken, and now Roger recognized him as Wayneright, even though he was far younger than he remembered him.

He stepped down from the trailer and towards the group, noticing as he did that Angel was frowning coldly at him.

Wayneright gestured towards the man that was with him, “This is Abraham Score, Major Smith. He is the chief designer of the Paradigm Tower.”

Roger’s jaw dropped at the mention of a familiar name in such an unfamiliar setting, “The what?” he asked.

Angel shook her head in exasperation, but the man called Score only laughed. “That’s what we’ve started to call the project unofficially. Oh, it’s still the Electrical Neural Network Implantation Portal on all the paperwork, but I think its nickname better describes what we actually intend for the machine to do.”

“To pass out of our bodies into an existence free of pain, death, want, and excess to a plane where one exists as pure mind… It’s almost like a dream!” Roger was shocked when he realized it was Dorothy that had spoken. Her voice was completely different. He wondered for a moment if it was simply because she had spoken with such enthusiasm, but dismissed the possibility quickly. No, the girl standing next to Wayneright looked like R. Dorothy, but there was nothing about his Dorothy inside her.

“Yes,” Score answered the girl, “But completely possible. And to think that the machines we used to almost completely destroy our world and ourselves will become the method for our escape. The irony is unbelievable, but then, that reminds me why we are here. If you don’t mind Major, I’d like to hear your report, so I know what I’m working with at this point.”

"I’m sorry,” Roger said, “My…uh…Lieutenant was right, I’m not feeling well. I’m sure she’ll take good care of you while I go and lay down.”

Before anyone could object, Roger quickly made his way back inside the trailer.

***

There was a strange breeze in the air atop the buildings far from Paradigm’s domes. Michael Seebach filled his lungs with it. It tasted bitter and old and false. He leaned precariously over the edge of the rooftop and stared down at the abandoned and crumbling streets below, and then looked up into the sun-hazed sky. After his flight in Big Duo, he realized that as long as his feet remained on the ground, he would never be high enough. He lifted himself onto the barrier and stood on his toes with his arms stretched to the sky. He took another deep breath and then let it out with a long, deep, full laugh.

“Do I really need to be here?” Ryan asked. He was leaning against the stairwell door with his eyes closed and his head tilted back in boredom.

Seebach turned, as if he had just remembered that Ryan was there. He jumped down from the barrier and went to squat in front of his young colleague. Close up, Ryan could see that his eyes were pale and burning in the light beyond the domes. He noticed that the flecks within the irises twirled like pinwheels or hypnotic spirals. He wondered if the man’s eyes had always looked that way, but he could not remember.

“I’m sorry Ryan,” he said apologetically, “I seem to be carried away. I wish that I could describe to you what it’s like—the connection with a megadeus.”

Ryan felt a stab of jealousy and his face must have betrayed him because Seebach softened his words. “There is a connection between you and Big Duo too, of course,” he said, “I don’t mean to belittle it, but you can’t know what it’s like to be in the cockpit; to know that the megadeus has become a part of you and that you have become a part of it.”

He stood up and began to pace back and forth restlessly, his hand rubbing his forehead as if he might force the right words out through his mouth.

“In the cockpit of Big Duo, I suddenly felt as though the memories of a thousand lifetimes were flowing through me, and I knew immediately that our working together, as megadeus and…megadeus and… and… dominus,” he looked up as if to confirm the words, “is right because we are both searching for something. Big Duo knows the answers, but has forgotten the questions. I am full of questions but cannot find answers.”

“What are your questions?” Ryan asked, mesmerized against his will by the other man’s speech.

“You see?” he laughed, “Oh the joy of obedient innocence! Do you not understand that the world is full of questions? I could never make Agnes see the world as naturally uncertain. So she asked me to leave; she asked me to stay away from the baby.” He laughed sadly, “That’s right. I was married once. I wonder how I could have forgotten?”

Ryan sighed, “So, why are we here Michael? Why an abandoned rooftop outside the domes? I don’t understand.”

“Stand up, my friend,” Seebach said, “Look out toward the domes. Focus your eyes on the central dome, where the old tower juts out into the sky like a spike.”

“I don’t see anything,” Ryan grumped.

“Do you want to see something?” Seebach asked impatiently, “Do you expect to see something?”

Ryan huffed, “All I see are the domes, and the sky, and nothing else.”

“Then stop looking with your eyes!” Michael cried, “Just look!”

He sighed again and turned back to stare at the horizon. His eyes lost their focus for a moment as he silently wondered about Seebach’s sanity. During that moment he saw something, something underneath the landscape, as if it were only a transparent curtain covering reality.

“I saw it!” he cried, “It was only for an instant, but I saw something!”

Michael slapped him on the back, and laughed heartily, “I knew you would see it too. Now, what do you think of it?”

“I don’t know what to think,” he answered, “Was it real or some kind of trick?”

Michael laughed again, “And now the floodgates open and the questions begin! Watch out friend, I mean to pierce through all the questions and pull back all the curtains. And I intend to begin with that one!”

With a long, triumphant sweep of his hand, he pointed towards the heart of Paradigm, and something about the gesture made Ryan afraid, but he could not be sure just exactly what or who it was that he was afraid of.

***

When Score had left with Wayneright and his daughter, Roger left the trailer. He had searched through the rest of the file cabinet and had found detailed diagrams outlining the dismantling of what seemed to be his very own megadeus, confirming his suspicions that the robot that was being dissected on the floor was, indeed, Big O.

Angel offered him only an unhappy smirk as he stepped back outside. “Feeling better?” she asked.

“Um… Yes, but I think I should go.” He answered, uncertainly.

She looked at him pointedly, “To the surface? Are you sure?”

His interest was immediately piqued, “Yes, I’m sure. Now, if you’ll just…”

“Of course,” she interrupted, “Just one moment.”

She turned, and quickly walked towards the team of men that was taking a break near Big O. She spoke to one of the men, and, after a moment, the two of them returned together. It was the same young man with the bandaged eye that he had noticed earlier. He was a wiry, young man with a carefree gait, and Roger immediately felt as if he was a man he could come to like.

“Mr. Burg has agreed to assist you, sir,” Angel said when they drew near.

“Mr. Burg?” he asked, incredulously.

Her eyes showed annoyance again, “Norman is perfectly qualified, sir. He’s our best mechanic, and knows the Deis even better than you.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing, and for a moment could only stand gaping in silence. Finally, he managed to sputter, “Well then… uh… Norman…um…lead the way.”

The young man turned and led Roger towards the far end of the room. Roger followed dumbly, unable to focus on anything but the young man in front of him, whom he could not deny was indeed the same Norman Burg that he knew. The same mannerisms that he was familiar with in his butler were present in the young man.

Suddenly, Burg stopped and turned to Roger, “Are you all right, sir?”

The tone of his voice was exactly as it should be, despite its youthfulness, and Roger couldn’t help but smile. “I’m fine Norman.”

The young man waited politely for a moment, before he uncomfortably motioned towards a rack of protective suits hanging along the wall, “Go ahead and suit up sir.” He said.

He took the hint and took one of the suits. It was made of a very heavy material and included a helmet with a thick visor. It made Roger even more curious about what he would find on “the surface”.

When both men were encased in protective gear, they walked through a small door at the end of the complex and entered a large cavern which had a thick, steel track imprinted in its rock floor. Upon the rails, a round, squat machine waited. The doors opened and the two men climbed in.
Roger worried for a moment that he might be called upon to work the controls, but Norman took the helm without question and after flicking a few switches and turning a number of levers, the little machine lurched forward and sped off through the darkness.

It was difficult to see much of anything through the darkened windows, so Roger leaned back in his seat and let his mind wander. The last thoughts he had before he drifted off to sleep were of bright faces in hot, white light, and of the cool, calm face of R. Dorothy.

***

The long gold sedan that Beck had stolen rolled in front of the doors to Paradigm Headquarters. Dorothy hobbled out as Jason watched, a cigarette between his fingers, refusing to help her.

“So you think Crow Boy’s in there?” he asked between puffs. “What a dump.”

Dorothy said nothing, but continued to climb the stairs with halting steps.

“You sure you don’t want to go home first so that old geezer can fix you up?” Beck asked.

“No.” she answered simply. Beck shrugged, “All right, sweetheart, it’s your decision.”

He dropped the cigarette on the ground, put it out with his foot, and began to follow her, “You know,” he said conversationally, “I had a crazy dream once about this tower. Of course, I can’t remember exactly what it was about, but I do know it was depressing, and there were all sorts of flashing lights.”

While Beck continued to ramble on, Dorothy reached the top of the steps and flung the door open. She stepped forward into the darkness, which became complete when Beck closed the doors.

She opened her CD drive and let the light illuminate her surroundings. They were in a long, thin room with a control panel at its center. Dorothy walked forward to inspect the display when she was hit from behind. Because she was already damaged, there was nothing she could do to stop herself from falling to the floor with a heavy thud.

The fall knocked her external sensors out momentarily. When they reconnected she saw Beck standing over her; the metal beam he had used to strike her still in his hands. Before she could stand, he dropped the beam on her. It landed on her waist, and she cried out. She was effectively trapped—she was too injured to lift it off.

Beck watched her squirm and laughed. Then he reached down and began to fiddle with the drive in her forehead. Dorothy could not discern what he was doing, but as her sensors began to send confused emergency messages, she realized that he was unceremoniously ripping out portions of her circuitry. Then, from somewhere in the back of the room, she heard a door open and the click of a light switch. Instantly the room was flooded with light, and Dorothy saw the android she had left at Wayneright Manor.

She made her way across the room, heels clicking, and wrapped her arms around Beck. He shrugged her off.

“Get off me babe,” he said roughly, “I know what you are now.”

She smiled, “That doesn’t have to stop us from having a little fun.”

He smiled back, “Now that’s a proposition I’ll have to look into,” he said.

“I assume she’s ready to hook up to the megadeus?” the android said.

“In just a minute,” Beck said, callously ripping out another of Dorothy’s nerves. “Bring the cables over.”

The android started to turn, but stopped to look at Dorothy, “For goodness sake Beck,” she said, “Turn her sensors off. The way she stares gives me chills.”

The thought of being held in total darkness and silence terrified Dorothy, but there was nothing she could do. With another tug of his filthy fingers, Beck made her world go black, and there was nothing left for her to do but wait.

***

The hospital had told her she was free to go, which had made her laugh. “Free” was no longer a word she felt could describe her. That had been three hours ago, and ever since, Angel had been wandering through the streets of Paradigm, fighting the instinctive urge that consistently tried to turn her feet towards the central tower. Before she fully realized it, she had entered one of the stairwells that led to the underground tunnels of Paradigm. She leaned against a cold wall for a moment, soaking in the darkness, before deciding to press on—anywhere was better than the place she had been before.

She carefully climbed down the stairwell and into the cleft between the tracks. A cold breeze blew gently through the empty tunnel; it made her shiver and pull her thin coat tightly around her, but she fought it the urge to turn back and pressed forward. As she descended further and further into the depths, the tunnel she walked became narrower and the walls became brighter; newer and more crisply made than anything she had seen in Paradigm.

She kept a hand on the slick and clean surface of the painted wall as she made her way through dimness into total darkness. For a time, there was nothing but blackness and silence, until, far in the distance, Angel saw a small beam, like the light of a flashlight, turn on and illuminate a face. She recognized the laughter long before she came close enough to recognize the form. It was a cold, unfeeling laugh that danced up and down her spine like a spider.

“Alan Gabriel,” she said, staring at the ash-white face that bobbed in and out of the torchlight as if it were on a spring. The only answer it gave to her whisper of amazement was an empty grin.

Suddenly, more lights began to flicker on, and Angel could see other things in the room: a table with a miniature model of Dorothy upon it, a small machine that clicked by, making mini statues of Roger from metal skeletons as it went, and, spread out on the table, detailed plans describing the construction of a Big.

“No!” Angel cried out in despair, “This is mad!”

“Mad?” questioned an eerie voice. Angel turned around to find the head of Alan Gabriel speaking to her. “We’re all mad here.” Then the dancing head began to laugh.

“Shut up!” Angel screamed, grabbed something from the table, and throwing it at him. It was a mechanical Roger doll, and it sailed through the room and hit the head, but rather than quiet the thing, it only made it swing back and forth at a more furious pace.

“Why are you running away, little angel?” Alan continued, “You don’t belong here. You don’t belong anywhere. You are a thing. A tool. An it. Why don’t you go back to where you used to come from?”

“That’s not true.” Angel whispered, “It can’t be true.”

Alan only laughed harder, “Oh, it’s not? Stop pretending. No one needs you. No one loves you.”

“You’re a liar, Alan!” she shouted at him, “There is someone here who cares about me!”

“Roger? Are you still so foolish that you can’t see that you mean absolutely nothing to that man? Or were you going to start crying out for that decrepit police officer?”

Angel gasped. “Dan.”

“How lovely! Now you’re pretending that he cares about you? That’s delightfully ridiculous. You are such a comedienne, darling; an absolute riot!” Alan roared with laughter, the harsh sound reaching an unbearable pitch, until it suddenly went silent, and around Angel everything went dark.

Alone in the darkness, tears began to trickle down her cheeks that matured into sobs, until she no longer cared what happened. It was then that long pink tentacles reached out for her, and caught her in their grasp once more. They plunged their unsympathetic spikes into her back, and Angel gasped as the dark void around her sharpened into an image. Suddenly she could finally see her world for what it really was, and she was terrified.

***

Ryan was doing some routine maintenance on Big Duo while he waited for Seebach to return. The man had not explained anything further since his speech on the building, and curiosity was keeping him tied to the work. It occurred to him that he ought to make an appearance at the science building, or, at the very least, return home for a time and mull over the things he had learned. But he was now tied up in the mystery, and found he could not abandon it.

Without warning, his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming towards him from within the underground. He looked up from his work and saw a tall figure drawing towards him in the half-light. It was Seebach. The man stopped where he was as if he was deciding something, and then beckoned to Ryan. He, in turn, put down his tools and followed.

For a time they walked through the narrow tunnels in silence. When the tunnel opened up again Seebach stopped, and Ryan looked past the other man into the darkness. He saw a small shape in the tunnel ahead. It came towards them, and soon he realized it was a small boy.

“Hello,” the little boy said to Ryan, “My name is Gordon. What’s yours?”

“Uh… Ryan,” he answered with an eyebrow cocked in Seebach’s direction.

The other man voiced his thoughts stoically, “Strange, isn’t it my friend, to find a small child wandering alone in the tunnels beneath Paradigm city? There is something wholly wrong about it.”

“I am not a child,” the little boy answered without a hint of childish impudence, “I am an old man. I have come to show you something.”

The little boy turned and began to walk through the tunnels. Seebach followed him immediately, but Ryan held back for a moment. For the second time, he felt in his gut that there was something very suspicious about the situation; he had a feeling that he would regret the decision if he followed. He almost turned around, but then he remembered what he had seen on the rooftops and could not bring himself to leave. With a sigh of resignation, he followed the man and the boy into the darkness.

They walked for a long time in silence. Then the monotony of the darkness was broken by a faint bluish glow ahead. As they turned a corner, Ryan saw the cause of the strange, unearthly glow. They had come to a place where the tunnel ended. It was not comprehensible. They had not reached a dead end as he had expected. Instead, it faded out of existence in an ethereal cross-section of faintly glowing blue lines.

“So…” Seebach began, “This is what it amounts to. After all my searching, the truth is that this world… the memories…”

“Don’t exist,” said the boy, “You have been searching for something that was never real.”

“Why are you showing me this?” Seebach said angrily, turning on the child and grabbing him by the collar, “What’s the point?”

“It’s my job,” he answered, nonplussed, “to ensure the initiation of all negotiations.”

Michael let the child go, put his hands to his face, and fell to his knees. He began to weep furiously until the tears turned to laughter of a sinister and maniacal nature. He threw back his hands and reached to the sky. Ryan watched and saw that his eyes were wild and unfocused, his face a pallid grey. Slowly, he began to back away.

“Ignorant fools!” Michael shouted angrily, “Worthless inhabitants of this false and unholy city! How long must you continue this charade? It must end! And if you refuse to bring this story to a close, then I will do it for you!”

Behind him, the child smiled, “That is right. Bring down the curtain on this revolving play.”

The boy’s face slowly inverted colors and melted into the pattern of bizarre glowing zig-zags. Ryan took a step toward his friend, who was still laughing insanely with his head thrown back and his hands in the air.

He touched him on the shoulder, “Michael?”

The man turned so fast that it knocked him backwards. His eyes were wide and wild, and his lips were pulled taught in an eerie smile. “Michael?” he said, “There is no Michael Seebach here! He is gone! He has died as will his city with all its false pretense and revered illusions!

Go and tell them!” He cried, pointing a finger into the darkness, “Tell them that we are coming! Big Duo and… and…”

A terrible laugh welled up in his gullet. It whistled from his curled lips like steam from a kettle until it erupted in a terrible scream of insane mirth. With triumphant gusto he shouted, “Big Duo and Schwarzwald!”

The tunnels began to rumble as the megadeus came to the call. Terrified, Ryan turned and ran, but a large stone shook loose from the ceiling and fell on his neck. Big Duo and Schwarzwald flew into the sky and left him where he was. Soon the rest of the city would join him.

***

Roger woke up to find himself surrounded by a crowd of shouting people. To his annoyance, his suit was rumpled and his hair was mussed yet again. He straightened himself up as best he could, and tried to get an idea of where he was now. There was a man standing on the stairs of some structure ahead, and every now and then a cheer would go up from the crowd because of something he said.

He squinted into the fading light, and saw that the structure was a recognizable one—it was Paradigm Tower—and the man on the steps was the man he had met in the warehouse—Abraham Score. He was speaking loudly, with wide gestures, and Roger could see that the crowd was listening intently to every word he said.

“It has been five years since we who survived our self-made calamity banded together to create a new existence,” Score declared, “The time has come when we can, at last, realize that dream. The power is on and the door is waiting. All we need now is the courage to step through.”

The crowd gave a huge cheer and began to press forward. Score, however, left the steps and began to walk in the opposite direction. Roger had the uncomfortable feeling that the man was headed for him. This proved to be correct. The man reached him, smiled, and took him by the shoulders like a brother.

“Roger, my friend,” he said unabashed, “Do you finally see, at last, how it all has come together?”

There was something going on in the crowd near Roger, and he turned away from the other man to watch. A girl had broken out in an impromptu dance of joy, and the crowd had stopped to watch her. After a moments watching, he realized that the girl was Dorothy Wayneright.

Suddenly, her dancing stopped. She turned to look at him, and her eyes changed into the eyes of the girl he knew. She spoke. “Roger, help me.”

Abruptly, everything began to rumble in an earthquake that only Roger seemed to notice. He reached out for Dorothy, but she turned away from him and ran towards the tower. He tried to chase her, but his legs could no longer move. As he watched she climbed the steps and entered through the doorway, which shut behind her with a loud, metallic clang. Then, from behind the door came a squealing of gears, and a bright blue light. Yet, above all this, the sound that Roger heard was the terrified scream of his Dorothy.

It was in that moment that he realized he was dreaming and woke up.

He was in a dark room that he quickly realized was Paradigm H.Q. and the ground was still shaking. Roger immediately recognized the footsteps of a Big and ran from the building. He threw the doors open and saw standing in the path ahead a dreaded and familiar form.

Big Duo.

*screams*

Cliffhanger!

When I was editing this, I actually did groan in despair... What happens next? What? What? This is almost as bad as waiting for Sunday night during that last story arc!

Very good job, Jane. I love your stuff

Oh, wow. This is brilliant. I eagerly anticipate your next part (as always)!

Ooh. Very nice, very nice indeed. I expected nothing less than brilliance from this, and once again my expectations were exceeded.

As usual.

We have got to get you onboard the Big-Oh! RPG.

Oh boy! More, more, more!

I admit I had to go back and read the previous parts of the story, but i'm ready to read some more!

Madrona

You always know how to end on a cliffhanger. My fingernails are worn off from hanging on to the cliff's edge. More, please!

Pygmalion

My favourite Meg has shown up! I love Duo! Thank goodness I gave her a hand with writing the battle or I'd have no clue what's happening next!

That was some cliffhanger too.

*sigh* I guess I know have to wait along with everyone else.

I really like how you have set up this story.

*joins chant of More! More! More!*

Great story, Jane.

BabyGhia

PS. Angel dreaming of Alan?? Poor Angel!

Update:

I think I'll be able to finish this in three more segments. If you're interested and want to look for it, the next one will be called "Purgatory".